Like Nintendo hasn't been pushing their codes-in-boxes since before the switch 2 release.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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What first party game was ever code-in-box?
Depends if you count Pokopia. But Pokemon is in that weird "sort of a Nintendo IP, sort of not" state.
Nintendo was not the publisher of Pokopia in Japan, and Gamefreak is an indie developer. But Nintendo did publish Pokopia worldwide and still chose not to put the game on cart, so not sure where the decision for that rests.
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world said "before the Switch 2 release". And while I don't like Game Key Cards, they are just barely above code-in-box because you can still trade/resell them.
To my understanding, some games just don’t work with SD cards because they need the faster loading off of the SSD. Also games over 64gb don’t fit on the cards.
It's a special case, but the Switch 2 Mario Kart launch bundle came preloaded with Mario Kart World digital. All previous versions of Nintendo consoles with a bundle came with physical media.
But you could absolutely purchase a non bundle Switch 2 and a physical Mario Kart World (for $20 more).
And you're right that so far every first party game has had both a physical release and a digital release.
All previous versions of Nintendo consoles with a bundle came with physical media.
Not true. If anything I'm trying to remember the last one that came with the physical game. The MK8 Wii U bundle was digital. As were the ALBW 3DS bundles. There's probably a few though, between the 2/3DS and Switch there have been quite a few collectors' editions. Some with game, some without.
Adding to the list of bundles, my new 3ds (still annoyed at that name) was bundled with animal crossing and it was digital as well
Oh interesting! So there must have been different bundles because my Wii U Mario Kart bundle came with a physical copy of the game and a special red Mario controller + plastic wheel.
But looking online I do see the digital only bundle existed.
My Switch 1 didn't come with anything bundled and I brought a physical copy of Breath of the Wild.
But when I bought my Switch 2 I saw Mario Kart was digital and Legends ZA was digital, so I assumed this was a new change over starting with this generation.
It's probably a regional difference. There might not have been an official Nintendo Eshop in your region, so you had physical editions bundled, now that there is, the bundle is digital
I'm in the US, so they definitely have an Eshop and always have.
I'm sure it's just different bundles over the lifetime of the system.
So there must have been different bundles because my Wii U Mario Kart bundle came with a physical copy of the game and a special red Mario controller + plastic wheel.
There's been a LOT of bundles. Either way, we both learned something today. I'd call that a win.
This is why I love Lemmy lmao
People really really latched onto the key card narrative despite it all being 3rd party publishers making use of it. The lone exception as far as I know is Pokopia, which as a Pokémon title comes with all the usual fucky bullshit that comes along with TPC and GameFreaks... but it was published in the west by Nintendo themselves.
It may be the only one, but people have convinced themselves that it's everything and no amount of facts will sway them otherwise.
And the fact is, the vast majority of game key cards are games that are on PC as well, so preservation isn't much of an issue. Pokopia is a notable exception.
Yeah but their physical games taste like shit.
I was hoping the red S2 carts would be cherry-flavored...
Yeah right. Nintendo was the one who came up with "virtual game key cards."
Virtual Game Key Cards are actually better than digital in most ways. Rather than the game code being tied to your account, it’s tied to the card. So you can still easily sell or lend it. It also does not require a Nintendo account to use (if that matters), just an internet connection.
For now. The problem is the mechanism exists to pull it back without your consent. If the download isn't hosted anymore, or they start binding keycodes to accounts, you're SOL.
Don't build in the mechanism at all. Give us the full drm free files on physical media. The community will do the rest because we can't trust corporations to preserve their history or respect their devs time and efforts when they could sell it to you again after they pull it from your library or remove the download hosts/store servers.
Yeah, but many modern games only work after a day 1 patch anyway, so what’s on the disc won’t count for much. Not to mention you still need a working console, and those stop being sold long before digital storefronts are closed.
I don’t think DRM free is realistic either, piracy is just too big of a problem on the release of a new game. Eventually the cracks will arrive, but that window before is important for making a profit. Most consumers are as amoral as corporations. They don’t care about who makes what they are using, nor do they care about the ethics behind where they got it from.
I disagree with the last points. If true, indie games would make next to nothing, but that hasn't been the case. In most cases, those of us who choose to pirate, it's often because price locks us out or we eant control of our owm single player experience. Many in the pirating community will buy a game that they believe to be worth the cost.
Games that include free demos are often much less pirated.
If you build something from passion and heart it gets pirated much less than something looking to solely make a profit. Pirating is a policy problem more than a theft problem.
Perhaps chasing profit isn't the path forward. And if DRM free didn't work, I'd imagine GOG wouldn't be viable as a business at all. One person could purchase a game and host it for free for anyone. People choose to instead support developers anyway when they beleive the game is worth it.
Basically, don't choose authoritarianism and profit. Choose passion and vision and giving back.
The vast majority of indie games make nothing. The price locking you out isn’t really a valid argument. If the developer lives in an expensive place and needs to charge X to break even, then that’s what they need to do to have a commercially viable product.
New games on GOG often have DRM, because it’s the only way they can compete with Steam.
I hardly see DRM as authoritarianism. No one compels you to play a game, its a luxury. Games are products and need to turn a profit so their creators can eat and create new games.
Price locking people out not being a valid argument doesn't follow from developers needing to charge X to break even. Both things can be true simultaneously. A developer can need that price to survive and that price can still lock people out who then pirate it. Thus is exactly why I played many free to play mmos because I simply didn't have money to afford monthly subscriptions. Price can absolutely be a barrier to entry.The behavior under constraint isn't invalidated by the price being justified.
GOG exists, it's viable, and its entire model was built on DRM-free releases. If DRM-free were commercially impossible it wouldn't exist at all. The fact that some publishers now include DRM on GOG is a publisher choice, not a market requirement. GOG itself doesn't mandate it and has historically pushed back against it. If there was no market for it, GOG wouldn't be in a position to push against anything.
Health codes still apply to restaurants even though nobody compels you to eat out. That's also a luxury. Consumer protection frameworks apply to discretionary purchases all the time. (Though in the US that's actively being rolled back and people are ending up sick more often.) Luxury status doesn't make restrictive or deceptive practices acceptable, it just means you can opt out of the product entirely, which is exactly what people are doing when they pirate or stop buying.
DRM absolutely follows authroritarian logic. I'm using the term to mean unilateral control exercised over something you've purchased without your meaningful consent or recourse. The mechanism is the same regardless of what you call it. You paid for access, the terms of that access get changed without your input, and you have no meaningful remedy. That dynamic doesn't become acceptable because the product is a game rather than something essential.
Until Nintendo inevitably shuts down the switch 2 eShop in the future
Yes. It allows selling and trading for however long the eshop is up. Bad that it has a time limit, but better than not having the option at all. Once they announce its shutdown collectors can buy the (presumably) cheap game key cards to install the games on their consoles. Hope they have a lot of microsd express cards!
Physical media is not the real issue here. I'm puzzled why it is the focus of attention, and I don't know if the explanation is just stupidity or intentional detraction.
If console games could be downloaded, stored on to media you own, then installed again from that media, this wouldn't be a problem. That's the real issue here.
It's been a good while since games bought as physical media, don't come with significant day 1 patches. So, doing away with physical copies of the games have absolutely zero impact. What does, and has been an issue for years, is that you cannot archive games you have bought, with the changes you can expect as part of that purchase.
What's the solution? Closest I can think of is GOG.
So, different people have different requirements.
From the preservation point of view, you are correct, but there are also some people who buy physical because of the ability to resell. I know many people like that, they can only afford new games by reselling the old ones.
You're right.
Reason why I oversimplified the problem is because the solution is almost the same. If they didn't care about DRM, it is exactly the same. A consumer friendly DRM would be one where a unique IDs follow a copy, and a physical copy you bought at the store (used or not) is the same kind of thing as what you would back up. Then, whatever standardised mechanism to validate this "key/license" on consoles, is allow-on-fail. If license service is down because the publisher doesn't see a incentive, it should be a free for all. (Though arguably, this is better handled on the console level, but that's mostly a technical difference)
End result is: you can always back up your games. You can sell your games (which upon them installing, invalidates the previous install, but that's fair). The edge cases here where you remain offline, or how to deal with multiple copies in multiple places using the same key, so that resellers can resell the same copy multiple times, etc, are relatively easy problems to solve, especially when you give consumers the benefit of the doubt.
Piracy is mostly motivated by inconvenience. When it's motivated by lack of money... they're not exactly losing out on a paying demographic.
They can very easily deny you that unless either the buyer or seller keep their console offline.
Let's simply fight for the actual right of resale even on completely digital purchases.
It is a compromise because all the other options are worse.
A lot of studios want some form of DRM, so a GOG model won't work for them. For various reasons, an offline DRM scheme is considered to be superior to an online DRM scheme.
What's the solution?
The only real solution for presenvation is 🦜🏴☠️⚔️... I mean... Asking companies gently to re-release their games on their updated digital stores :)
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The switch 2 will be the last Nintendo console with physical games. That's just the direction things are headed in.
how i see it, switch 2 will be the last with options, the next sucessor is probably going to be game key carts only because of the eventual game size cost(so itll appease the resell crowd but not the game preservation crowd)
Nintendo doesn't care about appeasing the resell crowd though. The only reason game key cards exist is because Nintendo still gets a lot of retail sales. But 5-6 years from now I doubt there will be much of a retail market anymore. Places like GameStop will probably be out of business by then, people will be more accustomed to purchasing digitally, and the people still buying physical will be a small percentage of the overall market. At that point, Nintendo makes the same decision that Sony did. Even Iwata knew back in 2009, he predicted it will take about 20 years to fully transition to digital sales.
I am hoping Nintendo will stick with physical games. They have already changed their pricing structure where physical games are more expensive than digital counterpart, so if people are willing to pay extra for physical game, they should just stick with it.
Rest we will have to wait and see.
If Xbox was smart, they would now announce they are sticking to physical media for the next generation, and back to console exclusives.
That would deflate the PS6 completely.
MS literally just decimated the entire Xbox + gaming studios front in favour of AI fuckwit hiring, we're lucky if there's a next Xbox console physical release, let alone games....
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A console that uses cheap USB sticks would be cool.
We can dream…
Sadly, with the chip shortage, USB sticks aren’t even that cheap anymore. MSoft and Sony would adopt the latest (most expensive) usb version for the transfer speed. You wouldn’t want the cheap chips/sticks anyway, lest your $90 game stick randomly corrupt itself.
Then you have to protect the stick while it’s plugged in so it doesn’t get bumped and break the connector/port; so then it’s back to proprietary sockets that only certain sticks fit into, flip-top covers, or something “under” the console. I remember folks throwing a fit when Apple put the power button on the bottom of the Mac mini 😂
MSoft and Sony would adopt the latest (most expensive) usb version for the transfer speed.
Nintendo opted for SD Express (a spec that has existed for years) in the Switch 2 and people pitched a fit over the "proprietary" format.
I'm not surprised it's Nintendo who will stand alone. I am surprised Sony officially announced it before Microslop, though. Although the Xbox has been slowly transitioning to digital, they haven't made any definitive statements on it yet.
The only reason Nintendo is still doing physical is because of their stance (read: stubbornness) to adapt what others in the gaming industry are doing, which can be a double-edged sword. In this case, it works out.
I thought it was the fact that Switch 1 & 2 are portable devices, and thus internet access is less likely to be available.
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