Capcom Considers Switch 2 Game Key Cards as Digital Sales - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 11 June 2025 / 4,158 Views
Capcom answering questions in its latest earnings report was asked about the Nintendo Switch 2 Game Key Card releases and stated those sales are considered digital rather than physical.
"They are recorded as digital sales," stated Capcom.
Game Key Cards on the Switch 2 are available to purchase at retailers, however, they only contain a digital activation key and has no game data on the card. The difference with a regular digital download is they are able to be resold and can work on other Switch 2 consoles without the need to use Virtual Game Card lending.
The majority of third-party Switch 2 games at launch are using Game Key Cards.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Because that's what they are.
"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy!"
Most gamers play through a game once and never play it again. Those same gamers would be better off just renting the games from the library or using a rental service like gamefly.
I would non-ironically want a rent service, and then buy and own only a few games when I decide they are good enough to keep and replay. 80% of the games imo are not worth it to be played more than a few hours
I think games should add digital rentals like you can get for movies.
Well good news... GamePass and PS Plus are and all you can eat rental service lol
But yeah, al la cart would be nice
Those need to be paid coletively... I think there will never exist an option to rent games individually because it's a very well know fact some kind of games would never sell again for full price. Something like Pikmin 3 is pretty fun, but features like 10 hours of gameplay and 0 replayability, if instead of paying 60 USD it was 20 for a month I'd never buy it, only rent
PS now had those, you had crazy options like 4 bucks for a 4 hour rental for Uncharted.
100%... I miss it
Great option back when I was crazy broke lol
That was a thing with PS Now... didn't do well and publishers weren't happy with their cut
If something like that were to be a thing MS/Nin/PS would need to take a smaller cut of the profit so the rental fee could stay low
If a rental is $10 or more... People would just default to GP/PS Plus
With the option to buy the game you like at a discounted price too! Well, at least with Game Pass lol
Yeah, yeah. The time to raise this objection was 20 years ago when Steam became a thing.
Why even bother at that point? Just go full digital. This is literal e-waste.
I you convince these companies to release their game DRM (and substitute) free then there's no problem. But as long as DMR practices persist, so must internet independant games
Because people retain the ability to transfer ownership...
Well... They are digital sales
They just happen to have the extra benefit of being able to resell
So they can say "Most of our games sold were digital" and then they justify going digital only.
I never bought a Download code in a box for Switch 1 and will never buy Game Key Cards for Switch 2. I'll probably buy some games then digital heavily reduced during sales and support releases like CP2077, which is for that reason my first Switch 2 retail game.
Absolutely the worst aspect about the Switch 1 was the "Code in a box".
Absolutely the worst aspect about the Switch 2 is the "Code in a box" and "Game Key Cards".
It's like Nintendo took the worst part about Switch and doubled down on it for the Switch 2 to bolster profit.
I will refuse to buy any games that aren't on a proper cart... Which should mean all of Nintendo's exclusives will be fine and good developers such as CD Project Red.
You do not own “your” Steam games, however. They are licenses to use, not purchases. Steam is pretty much the de facto PC platform.
It’s worth noting that GOG is owned by CDPR, which has shown remarkable commitment to making sure their Switch titles are packaged entirely on cartridge. Most of their offerings other than their own games are games that the owners have otherwise abandoned.
GOG deserves more love
They really go out of their way to make it easy to "own" your copy
Like I’ve said before, the time to take a stand on that was for people to reject Steam 20 years ago. Their beef is with Gabe Newell, not Nintendo. Little late for people to complain now.
And despite Nintendo being cast as a bugbear, thus far they have not actually shut down the ability for any of their download-capable consoles to re-download old games, not even those little DSi titles.
I was actually very against Steam back in the day and I continued to keep buying Physical until Physical could no longer be bought... And I will uphold that same position in the console space as well.
You are correct you can download those older games.
But also keep in mind that Nintendo itself issued a statement that it will stop those titles from being re-downloaded.
https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Support/Nintendo-DSi-XL-/Basic-setup-and-use/Nintendo-DSi-Shop-Discontinuation-FAQ/Can-I-still-re-download-Nintendo-DSiWare-that-I-ve-purchased-/Can-I-still-re-download-Nintendo-DSiWare-that-I-ve-purchased-1096628.html
Exactly.
I still purchase N64 and GameCube games, PS1 and PS2 Disks.
Something I would not be able to, if the digital terror would have already started back then.
I hope they will release Resident Evil 7, 8 and all the Remakes on Switch 2 natively
Should be possible considering they are on PS4 and surely it will sell enough to be worth it
Its still a physical sale because you can treat it like a physical game. If I go on eBay, I can buy a used copy and play it without any problems.
I'm not arguing the actual game is on the cart. And I generally avoided OG Switch games that did the same thing. But its still different than a typical digital store purchase.
Really don’t like this. If you’re fully digital you have no interest-if you want real physical games you don’t want this. Just plain dumb!!!!
It's possible that this is a decision based on tax rather than any philosophical reason. There are a lot of tax implications on whether something is physical or digital.
Whats the fcken point then!?
Beats Nintendo Switch games on the cloud...but still not a fan of the key cards.
This is pretty much the last gasp of physical media in gaming
It's hybrid both digital and physical!
Nope its 100% digital. Noo servers no game
It was a joke
I have always bought consoles day one and this is the first time i passed on a Nintendo product. And it’s not even because of the higher console price or $80 games. It’s because of the fake physical game cartridges.
I purchased Fast Fusion from the E-shop because I know of no other way to do so and I felt like that company deserves the support. Other than that, I avoid digital and will certainly not support any key-card offerings. It's giving a free pass to publishers to avoid physical, just to save some dollars and I'm not ok with that.
They're pointless.
"You'll own nothing and you'll be happy!"
And yea nintendo fans love it
Dude, give it a rest. Nintendo fans love it? They've been some of the most vocal agitators against it. There's a much stronger culture of physical game ownership among Nintendo consumers than elsewhere. Last year, Circana reported that for all titles with both physical and digital sales tracking, 53% of Switch software sales were done digitally. Compare that to 78% digital for PS5 and 91% digital for Xbox Series.
I guess you don’t have a Steam account, do you?
