A community for everything Nintendo. Games, news, discussions, stories etc.
Game | Date
|
Mario Tennis Fever [S2] | Feb 12 Pokémon Pokopia [S2] | Mar 5 Super Mario Bros. Wonder [S2] | Mar 26 Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream | Apr 16 Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave [S2] | 2026 Rhythm Heaven: Groove | 2026 The Duskbloods [S2] | 2026 Yoshi and the Mysterious Book | 2026 Splatoon Raiders [S2] | TBA Pokémon Champions | TBA
[S2] means Switch 2 only.
All I care about is if I can finally get some reasonable prices on Black Friday. Otherwise it's back to TOTK for me.
I actually read the article because I’m so excited about Octopath Traveler 0 but I was reminded again that the Switch 2 version is a game-key. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I love the series so much but I also hate the idea that I’m going to have a cartridge that won’t work if I don’t have Internet. But then again I don’t wanna buy the digital version and solve all my problems. Maybe I’ll just go with Switch 1 so that I can play it while I’m laying in bed or in front of the TV or anywhere on one of the consoles I have in the house.
I'm no fan of game-key cards either, but I'm pretty sure once the game is downloaded, you can play them offline. The ability to play the game is unlocked by the physical card, not your internet connection.
As the other comment said, keycards are just a way to "activate" the game, you only need internet to download the game on initial load. So for now it's fine.
But it'll be a problem if you're stuck somewhere without internet, or if Nintendo cuts support 10+ years later and you can't activate any second-hand cartridges since they no longer have the servers up to download from.
Basically the only positives of getting a key card rather than getting the game from the e-shop is being able to lend the game to anyone or resell it. Nothing else.
Most people I could lend the game to are in my online group so I could do this with virtual cards of e-shop games too, including DLC, and I basically never resell games. One could remark that you need online and a functioning e-shop server to lend a virtual card...but you'll also need it to install a game from a key card anyway.
If a game is going to require the internet to install/reinstall and is going to sit entirely in my console's memory, I am not carrying around an extra empty bit of plastic just to be able to start it. I used to get the games I could in physical form, but to me, they finally made it. They essentially made physical cards worse than full digital in every way.