Game preservationists have been giving their opinions on Nintendo Switch 2’s new Game-Key Cards.
Game-Key Cards are Nintendo’s new branding for cartridges that still require the game to be downloaded from the Switch 2 online store before the game can be played. The cartridge doesn’t contain the game data, rather it’s simply a ‘key’ that enables a download.
“Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data,” Nintendo’s own description says. “Instead, the game-key card is your ‘key’ to downloading the full game to your system via the internet. After it’s downloaded, you can play the game by inserting the game-key card into your system and starting it up like a standard physical game card.”
So far the vast majority of third-party Switch 2 games are Game-Key Cards, with only a few exceptions such as Cyberpunk 2077 and the Western version of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion.
When Japanese store Yodobashi started listing Switch 2 games, of the 11 new third-party Switch 2 games initially listed on the site with box art, all 11 had a logo on the front of the box designating them as Game-Key Cards.
The issue some players have with Game-Key Cards is that because they don’t contain the full game content on the cartridge, should the Switch 2 shop servers ever close down in the distant future – and therefore no longer provide the downloads necessary – those cartridges may become unplayable.
In a new report by GamesIndustry.biz, several people involved in game preservation and re-releases have given their views on the situation.
Stephen Kick, CEO of Nightdive Studios (which specialises in modern remasters of older, often out-of-print games) said that “seeing Nintendo do this is a little disheartening”, adding: “You would hope that a company that big, that has such a storied history, would take preservation a little more seriously.”
Videogame Heritage Society co-founder Professor James Newman is somewhat less convinced that Game-Key Cards will be a major issue, noting that it’s rare for a game on a cartridge to still be the same game years after release.
“Even when a cartridge does contain data on day one of release, games are so often patched, updated and expanded through downloads that the cart very often loses its connection to the game, and functions more like a physical copy protection dongle for a digital object,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Paul Dyson, director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at The Strong Museum in New York said the move to a future where all games are digital is “inevitable”, and that Nintendo has in fact been “in some ways, the slowest of the major console producers to be going there”.
