Yoshi and the Mysterious Book will sell for $60 in the eShop and will have an MSRP of $70 for the physical cartridge.
An opmist would say that it is $70 game and they are adding a $10 discount for buying it digitally. A pessimist would say that it is a $60 game and there is a $10 fee for the plastic cartridge.
It’s not really new, just Nintendo of America adapting to what Nintendo of Everywhere Else has already been doing.
I guess it makes sense, digital should be cheaper. But I can’t shake the feeling that this might be the last generation for physical media. They’re obviously aiming to phase it out, and I don’t think it’s a matter of if, but when.
TBH, in a world with DLC and major patches, how much does physical media still matter anymore? My Splatoon 3 cart contains a 1.0 that is very very very different from the current game today, is that really any better than these controversial Game Key Cards?
I say all of this as someone who still buys physical whenever possible, but even I start to wonder if there’s still a point in that or if I’m a dinosaur clinging to what’s already dead.
I guess I won’t feel bad when I have a hard drive with hundreds of switch roms on it someday.
somedaytomorrow
I think your example already makes a case for it - your cart still contains 1.0. You couldn’t get that any more, if digital were the only option. It’s a beautiful thing, to have media that does not depend on the Internet, that no company has control of (unless they want to physically send someone to your house to confiscate it).
To me, that stability is so much more valuable than any add-on content. It works both ways, so there’s tradeoffs, ie the latest updates are often not available on physical.
But yeah, I’m with you on most of it phasing out and us being dinosaurs.
I don’t like digital, but I’m already old and would be fine if no new video games were released (physical or otherwise) starting today. I enjoy the paradigm of games I grew up with, and since it’s voluntary, for-fun entertainment, I don’t always have to adapt.
Personally, I think as consoles shift more digital, I’ll shift more to PC.
Nintendo can already brick your cartridge over the internet and make it require game updates (via system firmware updates). They have already done this with Super Mario Wonder on Switch 2 - the game will not run without an update download. You can’t revert firmware versions on a DRM box like the Switch, and new cartridges (even ones with “the full game” on them) will require and include firmware updates. Playing the console online or purchasing any digital-only content (or downloading free patches) also requires the latest firmware, and there are whitelist mechanisms in place for Nintendo to outright say “you cannot run v1.0 of game X on system version 16.7.2U”. The v1. 0 being on a cartridge has no bearing on this functionality.
The only way to “play video games without relying on the internet or a company’s server” legally while being 100% sure that the company can’t do what they did to Mario Wonder is to buy and maintain multiple outdated firmware consoles that are isolated completely from the Internet. That’s obviously infeasible, so the only way to “play video games without relying on the internet or a company’s server” is the complete defeat or removal of DRM. On Nintendo platforms, that means piracy, full stop. On PC, there are a ton of games that are DRM-free digitally distributed products - those are the endgame here, not chips or discs. After all, with no DRM, you can put your copy of Slay the Spire on as many flash drives or DVDs as you want!
There’s also storage costs.
In a world where games can easily be dozens of GB and storage is at a premium (thanks, AI companies) having physical media with most of the game data on it makes it a lot easier to juggle between games.
It would make more sense if we could backup the updates and DLC to a external source or just include a flash chip on the carts that can store the dlc. Makes zero sense to have physical media and no way to ensure its up to date for the day Nintendo shuts that server off.
I am not sure if you can do it on a Switch, but I recall the 3DS having a feature where you could pull patches and DLC from one console to another. Not even close to what you were suggesting, but it is something.
Do any software stores support creating a local package mirror? I suppose you can make one for GoG by periodically checking for new game versions and saving the installer to a backup.
Not just the installers, but plenty of games (all of GOG’s catalog, but also a bunch on Steam) don’t have DRM at all. They’ll work just fine if you run the executable file without the “store” running (even if you got the exe file from Steam/etc and can’t re-download without a login thus functional servers and account in good standing and internet connection).
It would be nice, but Nintendo is against it for copyright reasons.
Same reason they sued Gary Bowser into the ground.
Making read/writeable cartridges would increase manufacturing costs even more.
Oh no! These poor billionaires!
Not sure what you’re trying to say. The costs will get passed on to consumers. They already are, but that’d be even moreso.
That sounds great, but I’m sure Lemmy is going to tell me this bad for some reason.
I wonder where this is coming from…
The cartridge will just have a game key on it*, And you still need to download and install it on your system and have Nintendo’s permission to use your switch 2.
(*probably)
According to the box photo on the GameStop site, it does not say that it is a key card.
Nintendo has said that, for now, all first party games are games on cart, though not for games that Nintendo is only the publisher/distributor for (see Pokopia).
Not sure why you are getting down voted when Nintendo told people they will do this for some games.
They should have done this years ago starting with the Switch in 2017.
Makes me even more mad that Pokopia is a key card.
Whether physical is more expensive or digital is discounted, it should’ve been like this from the start!
Keep in mind that video games are cheaper than they have been for most of history. I get that they want to raise prices. But it never made sense that physical and digital games were the same price.
Aside from not wanting to go through the effort of switching cartridges/discs (which is great for more passive/“permanent” games like say Animal Crossing or Pokemon maybe), I never understood the appeal of digital games for consoles. It feels like getting less for the same price.
An opmist would say that it is $70 game and they are adding a $10 discount for buying it digitally. A pessimist would say that it is a $60 game and there is a $10 fee for the plastic cartridge.
With the price of flash memory going up, they’re definitely charging a fee for the cartridge.
Honestly it never ever made sense to price a digital download at the same point as a physical object. Providing a digital download is entirely infrastructure costs, the cost of delivering “a copy” to the customer is fractions of a penny. Meanwhile, for a cartridge, for every copy, Nintendo (for example) has to buy a bunch of plastic and EMMC, image that flash storage with Mario Odyssey, print labels and stickers and encase that chip in more plastic, wrap that plastic in more plastic, ship those crates of plastic across the ocean, all to sell them to walmart and gamestop that take a cut of the sale themselves. When a customer downloads Mario Odyssey, all sixty dollars go straight to Nintendo.
These are ROM, not flash memory. Unless Nintendo is even more unhinged than we give them credit for.
I’ve claims they use eMMC, which is flash memory. Closer to SD card grade than SSD, but SD card prices are up too.
I imagine they’re using the eMMC data bus standard, but it’s pants-on-head moronic to use flash chips for what’s supposed to be permanently nonvolatile storage. Flash media is not storage stable if it’s not powered regularly; ask anybody with an old Windows install USB drive that’s more than a couple of years old and they’ll tell you all about it.
If this is so, that also opens up the inevitability of the data in cartridge games decaying and eventually becoming lost forever. Your cartridges would literally rot on the shelf.
Actually come to think of it, I wouldn’t put it past Nintendo to do that deliberately and be salivating at the very thought.
Tears of the Kingdom was my last physical game. Switch I was all physical and I bought a lot of games. Switch 2 going digital but now only buying Nintendo first party games and games that would be good for local multiplayer. Digital games on consoles don’t have amazing sales. PC you have certified key resellers including the bundle shops like Fanatical and Humble Bundle and now another one in Digiphile
I still want the Switch 2 to be a smash success to drive adoption for SD Express. That should be in phones, cameras, PC handhelds, raspberry pi and it’s competitors
They say that, yet whenever I see a physical cartridge for sale in HK it’s still cheaper than digital lol
It is a manufacturer suggested retail price. If a store wants to sell it for more or less, it is their right (and I am not aware of Nintendo having a Minimum Advertised Price policy).
