Nintendois a strange company. It’s always sought to do its own thing in a vacuum with appropriate distance from the competition. Sometimes this results in massive global victories like the originalSwitch, but others a glaring unwillingness to read the room or respect consumers sends it crashing and burning with catastrophic failures like theWii U.
While it has gotten with the times in recent years, with the adoption of modern online features and a wider library of games that span far beyond its impressive selection of exclusives, it’s still a company with so many baffling quirks.Friend codes should not be a thing in 2025, yet here we are.
Nintendo Switch 2 Feels Like A Modern Console (Mostly…)
When theNintendo Switch 2was first revealed, fans were bummed out due to howun-Nintendoit seemed in its marketing, design, and overall vibe. Instead of changing the console landscape this time around like it normally does, Nintendo opted for a numbered successor for what will be the first time in its history. No strange name, no unorthodox design, just an improved version of what came before that addresses complaints and iterates where necessary.
That’s the impression I’ve had during the multiple times I’ve gone hands-on with it since, too. It’s not only immediately familiar in its form factor and size, but also in the ways you navigate titles and interact with the user interface. It’s a Nintendo Switch, albeit more powerful and expensive-feeling than what came before. I’d describe it as halfway between the original Switch and the more premium feel of Valve’sSteam Deck. It will have exclusive titles and run all the video games you already love better than ever (unless you love Labo or Ring Fit Adventure, that is), and for me and millions of others, that’ll be enough.
Much like its predecessor, the Switch 2 will also make use of cartridges for its physical media. And it’s a mixed bag that’s worth talking about.
Except When It Comes To How It Uses Cartridges
Nintendo Switch 2 isn’t leaving physical media behind, and will launch with physical versions of most major launch titles, like Mario Kart World, Bravely Default Flying Fairy, Yakuza 0, and many others. If you want a box and a cartridge to put on your shelf, Nintendo is still honoring that with its new console. However, the purpose these cartridges play has changed in ways that are sadly indicative of our digital future.
The Switch 2 will launch with three different types of physical cartridges denoted by serial numbers to describe their purpose:
There are also Switch 2 exclusives like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza that will only work on the latest console, and enough work needs to be done to ensure parents and children don’t end up with an experience that outright doesn’t work on their older hardware. It’s initially confusing, and could have been communicated a lot better by Nintendo, but it’s easy enough to wrap your head around. Sadly, this doesn’t stop Game Key carts from being a bit of a bummer.
Once inserted into your console, these will still require you to download a game in its entirety from the internet, essentially acting as licensed permission for you to play instead of actually storing it. The larger the game, the more likely it is going to be to make use of this technique for physical releases. Why? Because larger carts cost more to produce, it isn’t financially viable for most companies to do this.
Bravely Default Flying Fairy, Star Wars Outlaws, Sonic X Shadow Generations, and Hitman are just a few of the launch titles available via Game Key carts. I can see this will end up being very common for larger third-party games that don’t want to have to optimise file size just for one platform.
The biggest fear with Game Key carts is how they could be the final nail in the coffin when it comes to physical preservation on Nintendo platforms. While you will still possess a physical copy of something, it is functionally useless unless the servers are online and can provide us with the means to trigger a download of missing data. Without that, they’re nothing more than terrible lightweight paperweights.
As the games we play become bigger and more complicated - even on Nintendo platforms with their famously small storage media - it’s a problem that will become impossible to avoid. Cost-cutting and the widespread adoption of SSDs has caused game sizes to skyrocket in the last few generations. Now we’re throwing three different types of cartridges into the mix for a platform intended primarily for casual audiences, and it’ll only make things worse.
