this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2025

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Why Star Wars Outlaws Is A Game-Key Card | Nintendo Life (www.nintendolife.com)

submitted 3 months ago by sundray@lemmus.org to c/nintendo@lemmy.world

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

They claim there's a technical reason instead of a financial one:

"Snowdrop relies heavily on disk streaming for its open world environments, and we found the Switch 2 cards simply didn’t give the performance we needed at the quality target we were going for. I don’t recall the cost of the cards ever entering the discussion - probably because it was moot.

"I think if we’d designed a game for Switch 2 from the ground up it might have been different. As it was, we’d build a game around the SSDs of the initial target platforms, and then the Switch 2 came along a while later. In this case I think our leadership made the right call."

No explanation was given as to why they didn't forgo the key card altogether and just release to the eshop only.

all 14 comments

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[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No explanation was given as to why they didn’t forgo the key card altogether and just release to the eshop only.

TBH compared to digital-only, having a GKC is still a preferrable option, as it can be sold when you're done with the game.

I think a better option for cases like this would be a cartridge that contains the compressed game data which can be installed to the local storage, as is the case with the other consoles' disks. But presumably the Switch 2's OS doesn't even have that capability right now.

[+] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de -8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You can’t sell GKC after downloading of the game, as far as I understand the system.

Only benefit I see for key cards are, that you can pay cash instead of needing digital money to get it.

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 15 points 3 months ago

You can sell key cards. The software has to be downloaded, but it's unplayable without the key card being inserted in the system. Without the key card, you cannot launch the game, but the card itself is not locked to your system. You can loan them or give them away, if you don't mind losing access to the game the card is for.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

You can’t sell GKC after downloading of the game, as far as I understand the system.

Then you don't understand it correctly. GKCs aren't locked to an account. When you're finished with the game you can sell it to someone else and they can download and play the game just fine (as long as the Switch 2 servers are still running). You won't be able to play it anymore after you've sold the card though, as it needs to be inserted to start the game. Source

[–] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

😃

TIL GKC =/= Download Code

[–] slimerancher@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

And that is why I was hopeful about GKC before, cause for this use case it's better than what we had before.

But it seems that many companies who would've otherswise released full game on disk have switched to GKC too.

[–] FreedomAdvocate 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No explanation was given as to why they didn’t forgo the key card altogether and just release to the eshop only.

Because the explanation is so obvious it doesn’t need to be said - then it’s only available on the eshop lol.

[–] sundray@lemmus.org 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It speaks then to their belief that people are buying game key cards in numbers large enough to justify the expense of manufacturing them. Or, maybe they're gambling that that's the case. I would like to know if they've seen relevant figures, and more generally, whether all the anti-GKC sentiment is just hot air.

[–] caseofthematts@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

It's probably not hot air in terms of what GKCs will mean for the future, but casual audiences most likely do not care as much, or maybe even know, as the perpetually online. See as well the Switch 2 boycott which didn't really mean much for Nintendo. I say all this as someone that is not currently purchasing from Nintendo, as well.

[–] kruhmaster@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What, are they using OG Switch cards for Switch 2?

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

No, they have the same form factor but they do have improved read speeds over Switch 1 cards. They're not as fast as the internal memory or MicroSD express cards though. In Mario Kart, the card takes about 20% longer to load.

[–] kruhmaster@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

UMDs ain't looking so outdated all of a sudden

[–] slimerancher@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I was under the impression that these new cards are as fast as (or near enough) the read speed on internal memory. Apparently that's not the case.