[HN Gopher] Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are ...
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Game preservationists say Switch2 GameKey Cards are disheartening
but inevitable
Author : haunter
Score : 63 points
Date : 2025-05-01 11:59 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.videogameschronicle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.videogameschronicle.com)
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| I can play all the on disk ps3 games I own, the downloadable ones
| are dust on the wind.
| zirgs wrote:
| Disc rot is a thing unfortunately. And they are no longer
| making new PS3s.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| GP didn't say that they were playing them on disk, only that
| they owned them on disc. Backing up PS3 games is relatively
| easy these days. I fully expect PS3 emulation to be good
| enough long before working PS3s are unobtainium.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| yet, empirically, the seven or eight disks work, and the
| downloadables are gone
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| With physical games, you're tied to how long your console and
| cartridge physically last.
|
| With digital games, you're tied to how long the console's e-store
| lasts, which is guaranteed to be sunset.
|
| Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a
| game that I was willing to play on Steam.
| wiktor-k wrote:
| > Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a
| game that I was willing to play on Steam.
|
| I do that too but doesn't the same rule apply to Steam, too?
| (that is if it goes down, you can't download the games
| anymore?).
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Steam is always given an exception in these conversations
| because they've generally behaved - but that can easily
| change overnight from a black swan event.
| 2mlWQbCK wrote:
| Some future manager will look at a graph and think
| monetization can be improved X% while only losing an
| estimated Y% of users. It is guaranteed to happen. Question
| is only if most in the current generation will outlive free
| access to their entire Steam library or not.
| luma wrote:
| Valve quite famously doesn't have managers and instead
| runs a "flat" org chart.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| This can easily be changed if Gabe Newell dies, commits a
| crime, or gets divorced, his estate or trust wants a
| change in direction, a lawsuit costs Steam a ton of money
| and they need to get cash quick, take your pick.
| kouteiheika wrote:
| That's true, but in general it's easy to archive games from
| Steam and (as long as the publisher doesn't use any 3rd-party
| DRM) they're trivial to crack.
|
| I buy my games from Steam because of the convenience and to
| support the developers, but if, say, Gaben kicks the bucket
| and Steam suddenly closes/turns evil I can just as easily
| pirate all of my games back. So from a game preservation
| standpoint Steam isn't that bad compared to the locked down
| consoles and their walled gardens.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I buy my games from Steam because of the convenience and
| to support the developers, but if, say, Gaben kicks the
| bucket and Steam suddenly closes/turns evil I can just as
| easily pirate all of my games back.
|
| I'd recommend pirating copies now to keep as backups while
| it's still easy. You can't be sure you'll be able to find
| copies of less popular games in the future, having the
| control over our own computers to do things like run
| unauthorized software is being threatened all the time, the
| ever expanding surveillance over our lives makes it
| increasingly risky to do anything legally questionable, and
| the copyright regime is only getting more powerful. I don't
| think piracy is going to die out any time soon, but I do
| suspect it's only going to get more difficult as we're
| increasingly controlled and spied on.
| nottorp wrote:
| > but if, say, Gaben kicks the bucket
|
| Has anyone in the gaming press asked him if he has a
| continuity plan, I wonder?
|
| > I'd recommend pirating copies now to keep as backups
| while it's still easy.
|
| That's the smart thing to do. But Steam/GoG are so
| convenient...
| cardanome wrote:
| That is why I buy my games on GOG. They don't have DRM, you
| can legally backup all your games.
|
| Plus they are EU-based which decreases political risk in the
| current political climate.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| It does, but Steam outlives console e-shops and hardware
| which have limited lifecycle by design since they are
| deliberately generational.
|
| GOG would be another example since you can get a DRM-free
| binary.
|
| On the other hand, does it really matter that much? Probably
| not. It feels good from a hoarding stance to have a bunch of
| games I'll probably never play but I got for a "good deal",
| heh.
|
| A counter-point to my comment is that the real goal should be
| to buy the game on the medium you want to play it on only if
| you're going to play it, finish as much as you want to, and
| not care if it goes away because it's all ephemeral in the
| end.
|
| I barely play games anymore yet I still would get sucked into
| looking for deals on Switch e-shop and Steam, and that
| feeling of sheepishness is what I had in mind when I
| commented.
| kouteiheika wrote:
| With pirated games, you can play them forever.
|
| There already exist games which you can (illegally) play today
| only because they were archived by pirates. However with the
| consoles' security getting better, piracy not being as
| widespread as back in the day and the industry not being
| interested in game preservation it's also a matter of time
| before we start permanently losing games again.
| agarsev wrote:
| Nintendo at least has a good history with this, at least in my
| experience. Both 3ds and WiiU e-stores were closed, but I can
| still play all my digital games on both. I can even make backup
| copies of the game on external media and everything works as
| you would expect (save online multiplayer, which is a shame but
| that's a different story)
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| Back when I was active in the modding scene I was able to get
| non-console interfaces for xbox memory cards and gba carts.
| With physical games you're tied to how long the physical medium
| lasts but not necessarily the console.
| addoo wrote:
| The article already touches on this, but in the modern day the
| games that exist on physical media are pretty much useless
| without their zero-day patches. Putting physical media aside,
| companies rarely make older builds available, so even when media
| contains a game and servers are up there is already plenty of
| 'lost media' if you consider old and interesting (potentially
| hilariously broken) old builds of virtually every game.
|
| I've realized this at some point, but video games are ephemeral
| and should really be enjoyed in the now. Even if you can
| perfectly preserve a game, and the means to play it, tastes
| change so quickly in gaming that a game that's fun today might
| not be enjoyable even a year later.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| No real offense intended, because I understand the feeling
| here, but this...
|
| > I've realized this at some point, but video games are
| ephemeral and should really be enjoyed in the now. Even if you
| can perfectly preserve a game, and the means to play it, tastes
| change so quickly in gaming that a game that's fun today might
| not be enjoyable even a year later.
|
| This is horseshit.
|
| It's a defeatist attitude, and it's not reflective of reality.
| Yes - some things go out of fashion for a while, but trends
| almost always cycle back. _You_ might think something is out of
| style right now, (and that 's fine) but to be facetious: One
| man's trash is another man's treasure.
| AkBKukU wrote:
| > Yes - some things go out of fashion for a while, but trends
| almost always cycle back.
|
| Exactly, this is even supported by Nintendo's own services
| offering emulation of their older systems. There is clearly
| demand for the ability to older games.
|
| Capitulation to an "inevitable" fate of download only games
| is just taking the easy way out by not sticking to your own
| core values. I have personally pre-ordered a Switch 2, but I
| will not being purchasing any online only cartridges or
| download only software.
|
| We haven't had the watershed moment that brings it into focus
| for gamers at large yet, The Crew was close. But Nintendo has
| kept the download servers going for all of their systems
| which has provided a false sense of security. Once those
| start being shut down maybe we'll see some actual response.
| Though with the introduction of Gamecube emulation on the
| Switch 2, they are only a small step away from emulating the
| Wii and giving people another scapegoat for their lazy
| acceptance of lack of ownership.
| TuxSH wrote:
| These day0/day1 patches and updates usually weigh a lot less
| than the base games, on Switch the appeal of cartridges is to
| avoid filling up storage.
|
| Before the Switch, save files were also stored on cartridges,
| making physical medium _far_ more appealing than the mess
| digital was on the 3DS (if you owned more than 1 console).
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| "Plays are ephemeral and should really be enjoyed in the now.
| Even if you can perfectly preserve a play, and the means to
| perform it, tastes change so quickly in theatre that a play
| that's entertaining today might not be enjoyable even a year
| later." - you, in the 1620s, probably.
| addoo wrote:
| Now imagine that the play cannot be altered (game build), it
| can only be performed on a specifically shaped stage
| (hardware requirements), actors can only be replaced by
| lookalikes ('remaster' tweaks), it can only be performed with
| a full theatre (online requirements), and the playwright
| retains the only copy of the play (source code).
|
| Then you _start_ to approach the problem that is gaming.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Which is exactly why more needs to be done by governments
| to stop this. A simple fix would be to say that in order to
| qualify for copyright protection, a national archive
| reserves the right to request a functional copy of the work
| in a form compatible with any future data migration
| projects.
| autoexec wrote:
| People have been altering plays for ages without much issue
| (just look at the mod community), emulating and porting
| plays to different stages, and even reverse engineering
| their own copies of the script.
|
| The only real catch has been online stuff and even that is
| sometimes worked around or recreated. It's not an
| impossible task to solve the problem of making games
| playable into the future, but it'll probably require
| legislation to force game companies to preserve their game
| and server code to allow for it.
| mysteria wrote:
| In the computer games industry pretty much everything has been
| download only for some time as the assets are too large for DVD
| and BD never caught on for PC. Places like GOG provide
| unrestricted offline installers but the majority are provided via
| a storefront like Epic or Steam.
|
| The worst case scenario for preservationists is for games to
| become a streaming service via cloud gaming, which publishers may
| like since it pretty much prevents piracy and allows them to
| charge a monthly fee rather than a one time license fee. For
| movies and music streaming exclusives aren't a new thing and
| improvements in network latency and bandwidth are making game
| streaming more and more viable.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Fortunately for everyone, all of the "stream games as a
| service" initiatives failed completely. Consumers aren't really
| interested due to obvious drawbacks, and vendors aren't
| interested in provisioning enough or good enough hardware to
| solve those drawbacks.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Imo if Gamepass is allowed to survive, it's end game is a
| tier, or maybe included at no extra cost with some
| limitations, a cloud gaming component.
|
| Gamepass is the biggest threat in turning games into
| subscriptions, and unfortunately a growing subset of people
| will only play games on Gamepass. We've dodged Gamepass
| exclusives for now, but for how long?
| autoexec wrote:
| Game pass doesn't seem terribly popular. Xbox in general
| isn't doing very well compared to the other consoles. I
| think they'll keep pushing for games as a service though.
| It's too tempting to keep all that control out of the hands
| of players.
| Cipater wrote:
| It's only available in 40 out of 195 countries in the
| world and they have zero plans to expand it. They must
| not care much about it.
| kbolino wrote:
| That doesn't mean much. And 40 countries is actually a
| pretty large amount for this sort of thing. Companies
| like this are accustomed to (near-)first-world unit
| economics and market dynamics and they struggle at best
| to adapt to conditions outside of that bubble. They
| likely have metrics showing very few potential customers,
| for various reasons like low ownership of eligible
| hardware or low exposure to relevant advertising or high
| rates of piracy setting the price to compete with near
| zero, etc.
|
| There are logistical challenges that have to be solved,
| and both upfront and ongoing costs that have to be paid,
| for every new country that needs to be served, and often
| these are unlikely to be recouped. If they foreseeably
| reach 90+% of their potential customer base and revenue
| (or think so anyway) from those 40 countries then not
| expanding beyond them is a practical decision that
| doesn't extrapolate to not caring within those 40.
| detaro wrote:
| > _Game pass doesn 't seem terribly popular_
|
| It seems fairly popular right now. If you are the kind of
| person who wants to play many new releases it's a great
| deal.
|
| But I think it's not particularly sticky: it's a great
| deal for as long as Microsoft invests into it getting
| many titles immediately. If they stop doing that, that
| same audience segment doesn't really have a use for it
| anymore.
| detaro wrote:
| Game pass already comes with tiers with cloud gaming
| nottorp wrote:
| I paid for GeForce Now for a while. But that one's different
| because you play the games you "own" on Steam and they just
| rent you the hardware to play them on.
|
| Eventually I got a gaming video card and canceled - for now.
| lelag wrote:
| Interesting point about PC going digital-only as Nintendo is a
| fascinating counter-example.
|
| While they offer digital downloads on the eShop, their pricing
| actively discourages it.
|
| Case in point: I just bought my kid a new first-party Switch
| game. Physical copy on Amazon was ~25% cheaper than the
| identical digital version on Nintendo's own eShop. Even my
| 9-year-old noted how illogical it seems, the physical version
| requires manufacturing, shipping, retail markup, yet costs
| significantly less than the digital bits that have near-zero
| marginal cost.
|
| It strongly suggests Nintendo wants the physical retail channel
| to thrive, or values the perceived permanence/resale value of
| cartridges.
|
| This context makes the Switch 2 "gamekey" cartridges (physical
| auth token, digital download) fit their pattern of valuing a
| physical artifact and retail presence, even if the data
| delivery shifts.
| jerf wrote:
| And physical, at least to date, retains resell value as well.
| If you want to play an expensive Nintendo release that
| effectively never goes down in retail value, it's reasonably
| safe to buy it, play it, and resell it if you don't want it
| indefinitely. Nintendo never lowering their prices helps
| anchor the value high even in the resell market most of the
| time.
|
| I haven't read enough about this to know if the gamekey will
| kill this but it's certainly only a matter of time before
| they are all coded and bindable to only one account.
| Technically this has obviously been possible for a long time,
| they just haven't dared to pull that trigger yet. They
| clearly want to.
| autoexec wrote:
| > And physical, at least to date, retains resell value as
| well.
|
| That stopping being true as soon as the DS line started and
| they switched to flash memory that will degrade over time
| when they don't have power. People's DS games are already
| failing. The same will happen to switch games. Only a few
| hardcore collectors are going to pay money for a cartridge
| that doesn't let you play the game anymore.
| kbolino wrote:
| That's more like antique value. Resell as meant here
| occurs within the first few months to maybe years after a
| game releases. Degradation that happens on a time scale
| of a decade or more will not be a significant issue for
| ordinary resale.
| nottorp wrote:
| It's not only Nintendo, but all consoles that still have
| physical versions of games.
|
| I never buy digitally from Sony, for example. The discs get
| discounted far earlier than the occasional digital sale.
|
| Plus since we're talking about preservation, I don't trust
| Sony to make my digital purchases available indefinitely.
|
| The only content you really own is the cracked version from
| pirate bay...
| Tarsul wrote:
| Nintendo has raised the physical prices for Switch 2 games
| more than the digital edition. E.g. Mario Kart physical will
| cost 90USD/EUR and digitally 80USD/EUR. Thus, their retail-
| friendliness has diminished with the new generation.
| f33d5173 wrote:
| Price discrimination. Digital is more convenient to the
| consumer, hence by nature they prefer it. Consumers who are
| more price sensitive can instead choose to put up with the
| inconvenience of a physical purchase in exchange for a
| cheaper price.
| proc0 wrote:
| I think it's silly that the conversation on preserving games
| revolves around hardware. The hardware is irrelevant. It's about
| the right to create digital backup for personal use. Whether the
| game is downloaded or burned on a disc, it's just software.
|
| The main problem used to be about piracy, but I think now it's
| really about making games as a service (even if they're not
| online for gameplay) because it allows more forms of
| monetization. The conversation should be about making games into
| a digital product that you can download and own the files. Piracy
| still happens anyway, and maybe this could make companies solve
| the problem differently, like only allowing digital backup for
| trusted players.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Wouldn't it be nice if the Library of Congress or the Bodleian
| or some other prestigous clouty institution could demand that
| these published artworks be given to them as an unencumbered
| copy? I know that such a thing might have to include server
| code and some agreements on runtime environment, but I don't
| see that as insuperable.
|
| This is culture and it's part of our patrimony. The privilege
| of getting to publish thinga and having copyright protection
| ought to include responsibilities to the society too.
| dtagames wrote:
| The problem is the cost and knowledge base required to keep
| servers running. A game server is a big proprietary ball of
| spaghetti with hundreds of API endpoints and only the people
| who built it really know how it works[0]. It's expensive to
| keep those folks around and expensive to pay for the cloud
| services and SaaS tools they need to do their jobs.
|
| All software has a "lifecycle" and has to be turned off at
| some point because no one is willing to pay the costs of
| keeping it running (with hosting and client changes as
| ongoing moving targets). We see this even with games that
| have sales! So ones that _don 't_ have sales are not likely
| to attract anyone to pay for such staff.
|
| [0] Source: I spent 2 years inside a studio owned by "big
| gaming."
| proc0 wrote:
| It could be paid by taxes, and run by government. Something
| like the Internet Archive (not sure if that's public but
| the entire Internet is much larger than all games put
| together).
| Rucadi wrote:
| And why not by private entities receiving donations of
| people that care about preservation?
| proc0 wrote:
| That could work I guess.
| jerjerjer wrote:
| Games with single-player mode must be playable in a fully
| offline mode. Would solve your (very valid) issue for a
| large chunk of games.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| There is a petition that would require publishers to
| leave games in a playable state at end-of-life
| (https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home), but
| it doesn't look like it will reach the threshold that
| would require the parliament to respond. It is one of the
| bigger petitions though, so it might still trigger some
| action.
| solardev wrote:
| Wait, in the EU you can just petition the government and
| they have to respond after some threshold?
| LM358 wrote:
| Yes, both at the EU level and also in many countries (EU
| and non-EU), see:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Citizens%27_Initia
| tiv...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative
| codedokode wrote:
| This might be solved in future by more advanced LLMs as
| long as binaries are preserved.
| ldng wrote:
| What your saying is true BUT. Your are talking about
| keeping servers (plural ?) running but, for conservancy,
| you should not need a full fledge cloud. It not about
| keeping it running for millions of customers. It's about
| being able to run for research to study games in the long
| run. One server that can handle a couple or two clients
| should be enough for conservancy.
| dtagames wrote:
| People are the harder problem. A game server is not a box
| you turn on and it just runs. The platforms themselves
| change under you all the time as do all the SaaS tools
| you rely on. Clients change all the time, too, and one
| missed update can make your game unrunnable. Folks don't
| want to train or pay the humans needed to keep server-
| based games alive.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Easy; if you don't want to pay for keeping up with SaaS,
| don't use SaaS! This is an entirely self-inflicted
| problem, and it's on you (as in, the gamedev) to fix it.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| > All software has a "lifecycle" and has to be turned off
| at some point because no one is willing to pay the costs of
| keeping it running (with hosting and client changes as
| ongoing moving targets). We see this even with games that
| have sales! So ones that don't have sales are not likely to
| attract anyone to pay for such staff. [0] Source: I spent 2
| years inside a studio owned by "big gaming.
|
| You mean SAAS has a life cycle.
|
| Software itself can be run by people willing to keep it
| running.
|
| The whole "software should be turned off" comment is you
| trying to change perception about what software is.
| kubb wrote:
| Then how do unofficial WoW, Diablo 2 or Lineage 2 servers
| exist? Enthusiasts run them for free.
| jsheard wrote:
| Due to huge reverse engineering efforts which few games
| get, especially _after_ the official servers have already
| shut down so there 's no reference implementation
| anymore. For every game which gets unofficial servers, a
| few dozen never will.
| kubb wrote:
| So people can run servers even without the server source
| code, and the problem preventing leaving the server code
| to the Library of Congress, etc. is _not_ "the cost and
| knowledge base required to keep servers running".
| mpalmer wrote:
| ...therefore it shouldn't be preserved at all? This doesn't
| follow.
|
| No one mentioned running the code, just persisting it for
| the future public good
| proc0 wrote:
| Yes that would be nice. It could definitely be a non-profit
| and get a lot of support. Then they could grant access to
| past games that are no longer on the market. Ideally anyone
| can just make their own backups without publishing the copy.
| I still think there are solutions to allow this but companies
| want games a service to make more money.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be nice if the Library of Congress or the
| Bodleian or some other prestigous clouty institution could
| demand that these published artworks be given to them as an
| unencumbered copy?
|
| I agree. It should be a requirement to receive copyright
| protection. The US Copyright Office should also make those
| copies available for download on their servers the moment
| that the work enters the public domain.
| ferbivore wrote:
| All games with a budget over $10m will be online-only gacha
| soon enough because it would be fiscally irresponsible to do
| anything else. The only reason you can still "buy" large games
| - to whatever extent you still can, you're mostly leasing games
| if you don't pirate them anyway - is irrationality and inertia
| on the part of publishers, which I doubt will last forever
| under shareholder pressure.
|
| A lot of games are already nearly impossible to preserve
| because they use DRM and anti-cheat systems that only a handful
| of people in the world could crack. Maybe in the future more
| people will learn, but I think it's more likely the opposite
| will happen and these people will be fully outcompeted by DRM
| providers.
|
| I wish there was a way to prevent this, but I don't see it. You
| would have to outlaw SaaS in general. I mean, that sounds like
| utopia to me, but there's no chance any country would go for
| it.
| pjmlp wrote:
| The reason being timesharing seems to be the only way to
| force people to pay for digital goods, including developers.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| People were predicting this a decade ago but somehow we're
| still getting games like Tears of the Kingdom and Expedition
| 33.
| proc0 wrote:
| I think that's true for multiplayer games, which is
| understandable because they are more like platforms, even
| social media, because it has to support a community of people
| that play with each other.
|
| Single player games will still exist though, and companies
| will still try to make them online games that can be patched
| often and have online stores (latest assassin's creed does
| this), but we should all agree this is no longer the same
| product. If a single player game becomes a service, it is no
| longer about a self-contained experience that exists like a
| movie or book. I guess here is where consumers need to demand
| that certain game genres be treated as art, and as such be
| sold like products instead of services.
| kbolino wrote:
| There's definitely been a shift in what it means to be a
| multiplayer game. Live service games are crowding out the
| other forms.
|
| Split-screen, LAN, and even Internet play without fixed
| servers all existed once upon a time (and still do, to a
| limited extent). But they aren't what people usually mean
| when they say "multiplayer" anymore. However, they all have
| the advantage of staying playable basically forever, with
| the only real limitation being the ability to emulate older
| tech.
| kelsey978126 wrote:
| Hot take: when a game is not able to be preserved, it is not
| worthy of preservation efforts. When it's not worthy of being
| saved for the future is it even worth playing today? My answer is
| no.
| autoexec wrote:
| I feel similarly, but at the same time there will come a point
| where there won't be any games being made that aren't designed
| to be unplayable after a certain amount of time.
|
| I expect that far more people will suck it up and pay whatever
| they have to in order to play whatever games they're allowed to
| today rather than abandon playing video games entirely. I think
| game companies are counting on that too.
|
| If you're counting on gamers to vote will their wallets in
| order to save video games I think you're going to be extremely
| disappointed.
| mcphage wrote:
| It's an imperfect solution to a real problem--Nintendo wants to
| use cartridges instead of discs for some good reasons, some not-
| so-good reasons--but the costs per cartridge are too high for
| cartridges big enough to hold modern games.
|
| But you can look at it as a transferable license to otherwise
| digital games, and that's not bad. A console with entirely (or
| almost entirely) digital games would have no used game market,
| and that sucks both for sellers (which I don't do), and buyers
| (which I happily do).
|
| It would be nice if there was some legal protection for the buyer
| that, by selling a physical license, that Nintendo be required to
| make the download itself available for some time period > 20
| years.
| jsheard wrote:
| I get that Switch 2 games need faster storage, and that makes the
| traditional model of running games directly from the cart
| prohibitively expensive, but they could have just copied the
| Xbox/Playstation model of shipping physical games on slow media
| (Blurays in their case) and then having a mandatory installation
| step which copies the data to the fast internal SSD before you
| start playing. That way you're not entirely dependent on online
| services to play a physical game.
| mattl wrote:
| For the Switch any amount of flash memory for those game cards
| is expensive. They previously offered much smaller, slightly
| cheaper cards that started at 2GB.
|
| Unfortunately this time they're only offering 64GB cards or
| these key cards. I'm curious how much storage they have, I'm
| sure _very_ little.
| jsheard wrote:
| Maybe Sony was actually onto something with UMDs :P
| kllrnohj wrote:
| Brand name 64GB microSDXC UHS-I cards are $10 retail. Figure
| Nintendo can get the actual flash storage directly much
| cheaper than that, probably more like $3-5. That hardly seems
| like a meaningful cost saving measure for a physical game,
| especially on a console that's pushing upwards of $80 as the
| game price.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > Figure Nintendo can get the actual flash storage directly
| much cheaper than that, probably more like $3-5
|
| Not necessarily. Nintendo's variant is built by Macronix
| under their XtraROM service; a variant of NAND flash
| designed to be a reliable Mask ROM substitute (including
| only being writable once, automatic repair afterwards,
| etc). Officially, their chips are rated to last 20 years at
| 85 degrees Celsius, which is insane.
|
| This isn't your off the shelf SD card chip built by a no-
| name Chinese design company that fails after 3 years of not
| receiving power. Combine the niche flash with a custom
| security chip (Lotus3) on every game card; that's not
| cheap.
|
| While we don't know the exact pricing, the rumors are that
| 64GB is somewhere in the $15-$25 range per cartridge. At
| those prices, even if I ran a game company, I'd be
| reserving the non-game-key versions for a Deluxe
| Collector's edition.
| jbm wrote:
| Strange, my copy of fitbox died after about 2-3 years of
| occasional use without any abuse.
|
| To be fair, this was the case for my Joycons too (Calling
| it drift is branding, they are effectively unusable)
|
| I like Nintendo's games but their QC has always been a
| little off. I got bad joypads even in the 80s when we got
| a NES. (Not having the internet and being a dumb kid I
| thought I was only limited to moving up and left on Zelda
| for whatever reason)
| xmodem wrote:
| I have an Xbox 360 wired controller that I purchased
| circa 2008. I use it at least 1-2 times a week - these
| days for gaming on PC mostly, although I still pull the
| 360 out of the closet from time to time. The thumbstick
| rubber is definitely starting to get a little worse for
| wear at this point, but the controller still functions
| perfectly.
|
| I cannot understand how we used to engineer controllers
| that last, and now we just... don't.
| jbm wrote:
| Literally have the same thing; a wired XBOX360 controller
| that I bought a long time ago. I had to clean up the gunk
| inside a few years ago, but it still works perfectly
| fine.
|
| I've seen some videos explaining the cause of the Joycon
| issue and it feels like it must be cost cutting (on the
| most important component of the device). People even fix
| it temporarily with a piece of cardboard.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StRvTiRagPo
|
| Keep in mind, these are 100$+ in Canada. Per my
| experience, I think it will be another 40 years until I
| buy another Nintendo console.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Dead zones. Older controllers had bigger dead zones so
| the wear didn't matter as much. Switch joycons are
| physically smaller sticks so this makes the problem
| worse. There's even less tolerance to wear.
| terribleperson wrote:
| I think it's literally cost-cutting. Parts that used to
| be built well enough that they last years are now built
| just well enough to not fail in testing.
|
| Luckily, you can now buy third-party controllers that use
| hall effect sensors.
| autoexec wrote:
| People's 3DS games are already being found to be
| unplayable after sitting on the shelf and switch games
| will meet the same fate. Nintendo has been failing both
| paying customers and preservationists for a very long
| time now. Piracy will again be the only way people will
| have to play many Nintendo switch titles. In other cases,
| people will have to wait for nintendo to release a
| limited selection of overpriced (and sometimes
| edited/censored) versions of certain older games on
| whatever future platform they're currently pushing.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I did some Googling and there doesn't seem to be an
| epidemic of 3DS game carts failing, I can find a few
| isolated reports but that feels as expected to me.
|
| It also sounds like you can extend the lifespan my making
| sure to boot up your cartridge in a 3DS every so often,
| because Nintendo gave them an error correction routine:
| https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-switch-3ds-
| cartridge-li...
| staticman2 wrote:
| Digital Foundry said these cards are estimated to cost game
| companies 16 bucks per unit.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I think we only know the maximum physical cartridge size for
| Switch 2 is at 64GB as you write, but the CD Projekt
| interview about Switch 2 indicates there is/are other sizes
| available.
| altairprime wrote:
| It's to prevent warez rips as well, though. Performance of the
| SD card can be easily worked around; blocking the non-
| preservation segment community that just wants to download and
| play Switch games without paying for them -- the majority of
| which don't care about historical preservation or speedrunning
| -- is made much easier by simply not loading new games from SD
| cards at all.
| jsheard wrote:
| If stopping piracy was the main motivation for this change
| then _all_ games would ship on GameKey carts, but they are
| still offering real carts to publishers who are willing to
| pay extra for the flash.
|
| It's rare for physical media to be the weak link in console
| DRM nowadays, when piracy does happen it's nearly always
| enabled by a full system jailbreak at which point you can
| just as easily pirate digital games.
| altairprime wrote:
| It's not all or nothing. They made ripping of the most
| valuable games more difficult in exchange for lower prices
| for publishers, a win-win scenario for their platform, and
| those few who will insist on having a no-download
| experience can pay extra to do so. Obviously platform
| compromises will continue to make ripping possible, but
| this isn't about all or nothing prevention, it's about
| ratcheting up the difficulty level.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| It's up to the publisher how much DRM they want. Just as
| publishers choose whether or not their game on Steam uses
| DRM, publishers for Switch 2 decide whether their game will
| use GameKey or not.
| autoexec wrote:
| > It's to prevent warez rips as well, though.
|
| There's basically no chance that this scheme will prevent
| piracy. Once again the pirates will have the superior product
| and paying customers will be screwed over.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The Switch is a portable device, so this "slow media" would
| have to be _some_ form of solid state memory. And
| unfortunately, cheap flash memory tends to also have a short
| self life. That doesn 't exactly help with preservation!
|
| All else being equal, I'm happy Nintendo went with the more
| expensive media, even if it means some smaller titles likely
| won't be available physically. (In my eyes, a key card does not
| count as a physical release.)
|
| I'm mostly just happy the key cards are clearly labeled so I
| can avoid buying them...
| qbane wrote:
| > 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
|
| From preservation's perspective even the day-one release, no
| matter how buggy it is, is worth preserved. The speedrun
| community, for instance, often need to fix on an exact version of
| the game to compete, and a physical copy (implying a pinned
| revision) is often easier to agree on.
|
| There are exceptions to this, when the day-one release is not
| playable. It is the trend happening in the software industry --
| release early, even if it is literally unusable, because we can
| push a patch via the network -- that is disheartening.
| ferguess_k wrote:
| I think Switch is just following the other consoles eventually.
|
| This lead me think, is there any 8-bit/16-bit/32-bit native
| handheld (not Pi emulation) market? I guess the primary
| difficulty is to make games for them, so most likely just a small
| hobbyist market. I still think kids don't really care about
| graphics though, at least when they are young.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| There are a few handhelds that can play pico-8 games. I think
| it's done by running pico-8 itself on the handheld which can
| also run other emulators so I'm not sure it meets your criteria
| but there's that at least :)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| > 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.
|
| AFAIK this is only in Japan. The Japanese Switch 2 experience is
| going to be vastly different from the international one in ways
| the average Japanese player won't immediately notice, because
| Japan's economy is in the toilet and Nintendo is engaging in
| several desperation moves to avoid selling a product nobody
| living on a Japanese wage can afford.
|
| If you're wondering what I mean by "vastly different": the Switch
| 2 you can buy at Yodobashi or Bic Camera is going to be region-
| and language-locked to Japanese only. You will only be allowed to
| sign in with a Japanese account, which can only be funded with
| Japanese credit cards. You can't change the system language to
| anything other than Japanese, and any games that rely on the
| system language will consequently be locked to Japanese, too. In
| exchange, the system is $100 cheaper[0].
|
| Switch 1 also had Game Key Cards, but they weren't branded this
| way. Instead they were games that required a software update
| containing the rest of the game in order to work, with an
| appropriate warning on the box about this. For the record, Switch
| 1 updates could be downloaded peer-to-peer, and I'm assuming this
| carries forward for Switch 2, but I have no idea if Game Key
| Cards work the same way.
|
| [0] If you live in Japan and want an international-spec Switch 2,
| that's an exclusive My Nintendo Store item that costs the same as
| it does in the US.
| dmwilcox wrote:
| I guess I'm the odd duck with a switch that has never been
| online. It sounds like the switch2 isn't for me.
|
| Sad but I don't want another device that wants to be more than it
| is, I basically want an updated version of my gameboy from the
| 90s and that's it. No downloads, no network, no social, just a
| game you can quietly play anywhere when you have a bit of time,
| no nonsense
| manojlds wrote:
| This thing already happens with download only games being sold.
| At least with the game cards you can sell the card again which
| you can't with the keys.
|
| So essentially this is an improvement and you won't even know
| it if you only buy first party games.
| whitehexagon wrote:
| Hah, I thought it was just me. Mine was the same, never online,
| and this key based card thing makes me think that my next, and
| probably final console purchase, will be a replacement Switch
| 1. Although I saw the prices just went up, and I didnt even
| know about the oled version. The main thing that holds me back
| is the dof blurr in Links Awakening.
|
| I imagine that Nintendo want a slice of this subscription based
| gaming scam. The HD versions already feel like a step in that
| greed direction. And I think I saw a collection of Mario 3D
| games that fell into that same repackage-and-sell-again
| category, with crazy pricing.
|
| You might like the DE10-nano Mister project. I manged to get
| some old arcade cabinates running on a big monitor, no frame
| drops or lag like most emulators suffer, and no stream of 10p
| coins required. FPGA feels closer in terms of preservation.
| nokeya wrote:
| If I give this GameKey card to the friend, will he be able to
| download and play it? With card inserted, of course. If not -
| these cards are just glorified activation codes
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| That's exactly what separates this from activation codes, yes.
| junaru wrote:
| > 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.
|
| > may
|
| Weasel 'game journalists' like this is the reason gaming is
| dying.
|
| The world is WILL not may. It happened before and it will happen
| again because publications like this are nothing more than pr
| department for gaming companies.
| supermatt wrote:
| I was under the impression that the games would download and be
| stored on the card. Is this not the case? My current collection
| of game cards exceeds any expanded storage by quite a wide
| margin...
|
| Edit: I guess not:
|
| "you must have enough free space in your Nintendo Switch 2 system
| memory or microSD Express card"
|
| https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
|
| FFS. I never thought this day would come with Nintendo.
| timnetworks wrote:
| It CAN be used to give you a WHOLE new experience without any
| additional hassle! But it WILL be used to lock you out of your
| $85 instead.
| reverendsteveii wrote:
| This way nintendo can take the games you bought for any reason or
| no reason at all. You'll own nothing and like it!
| znpy wrote:
| > "You would hope that a company that big, that has such a
| storied history, would take preservation a little more
| seriously."
|
| Why would one hope that? Nintendo has never ever shown any kind
| of sign of even remote interest in anybody not-Nintendo doing any
| kind of preservation.
| j1elo wrote:
| It's not fun how the trend is to force everybody to have
| internet, as if it was an essential service like electricity or
| water. Some argue it is, but I'd say we're generally far from
| there. I wanted a console to play when I go to my out of town
| apartment where we don't need nor want to contract an internet
| line. And now it means I cannot even bring some cartridges with
| me and swap them as I please, because they are always requiring
| internet connectivity for everything.
|
| What hasn't failed me is to hack my devices and use pirated
| versions of my content. Ironic that this method works much
| better. All games I want, locally, in a pack of SD cards I bring
| in my backpack, ready to install and play 100% offline at any
| moment in a train, a flight, a boat.
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