Nintendo: We respect your love of owning physical games. Also Nintendo: Here’s a cartridge containing approximately zero game, just a tiny plastic permission slip for our servers. It’s like selling someone a book where every page says »please connect to the library.« Still, apparently that counts as consumer friendly now.

To be honest this is not recent news, basically since PS4/XONE era, physical media died.

I think it was Fallout 76 that needed you to download a ~80GB patch from DAY ONE to let you play? And please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Microsoft at some point (not sure if this is still the same) didn't let you even share game discs because your "digital ownership" was tied to your console/user when you first installed the game?

Shitendo is just pulling off their cool glasses to tell everyone: "We are the good guys! Believe us!" because they somehow always have a market that can remember the "good things" and forget the bad ones.

Their "Game Key"-Cartridges literally are just shortcuts to the eshop. Nintendo thinks you're stupid.

I believe many people have made that point over the years but Nintendo was at its best while it was struggling, especially during the GameCube era when they actually tried new things instead of redoing the same stuff over and over again.

Their current leadership being a bunch of faceless economists doesn't help either.

According to DoesItPlay.org, only 13% of PS4 games required a download to play. When you look at PS5, it's only 17% requiring download.

Microsoft actually implemented the opposite of your described sharing method recently. When you first put in physical media, you are allowed a digital download of that until that disc is put into another Xbox, where the license is immediately transferred.

That's incredible good news, thanks for sharing!

I just hope Xbox is not trying a "Nintendo", by basically trying to attract public by doing the opposite of what their competition is doing, I honestly hope they get their shit together and they really are trying this, not as marketing campaign.

No, no, believe me, as many people here I played with Nintendo consoles a good part of their childhood's, even though I couldn't play with the GameCube because I wasn't born, I mainly enjoyed the Wii / Nintendo DS era.

They really knew how to create permanent memories, but I think the "playing with your family" part was the best with Nintendo, with games like Wii Sports.

But currently I think is the decaying state of the console companies that make now this more like "choose the best among the worst", and Nintendo in my opinion is easily the worst of all.

that counts as consumer friendly now.

As consumer friendly as they're willing to go

Nintendo loves you(r money)!

I'd love to do some testing and see the limits of the Xbox licensing system. Does the latest OS allow you to put a disc into an offline Xbox? Does the license transfer when that Xbox comes back online and the disc is not inside? or is the physical disc inside the console what causes a license transfer?

Back when Xbox Live went down, I did some testing on what could launch and what couldn't for both Xbox One and Series X... and I was really surprised at how integrated the OS was to the internet. It really seemed like there is a local and internet check for launching a game. And plenty of license caching.

Overall this digitization of physical media sounds nice, but I've pointed out before... this was the original idea behind the Xbox One. Internet check-ins for every disc don't sound so evil now that we've slid so far downhill.

Microsoft is just doing that, because their xbox brand is faltering. PS5 outsells the xbox more than 3:1

2013, when they had the upper hand comming off the xbox 360 into the next generation of consoles, they were the ones trying to pull anti-consumer moves.

Literally the same thing publishers and Steam did to build a PC gaming monopoly.

They know G*mers are dumbasses

Game keys are much better, as they can be resold. It's similar to what Xbox is doing.

Have people been able to do what they're doing with Sony's stuff to Nintendo's stuff? Can I find Nintendo games to play on my Linux natively? I'd really like to try some new animal crossing or a backlog of Mario games, but I simply am not a fanboy anymore for Nintendo. I think super Nintendo was really the peak for me. Or maybe n64? I guess I never had a GameCube. I had one for my kids then I had a Wii I soft modded, and it suddenly died at some point after I had it set up with all kinds of cool shit and cover flow emulators, even commodore 64 emulator, just think it would be cool for nostalgia if I could find some stuff like they're doing with God of war and everything else for the PlayStation except from Nintendo. What is it called? Decompiling recompiling something. I'm not really sure. All the technical shit, And I don't really even have the motivation to turn on my PC half the days. If I get out of bed that is, but if there is and anybody knows a way way for native PC play with Nintendo games hit me up

The lawsuit company cares about you.

Lol no they fucking do not

Fuck off. Moron gamers eat this shit up. Nintendo is the fucking worst.

I say this like an ex-boyfriend from an abusive relationship, Nintendo does not love you. Much like most people in my life, once I ran out of money, Nintendo disappeared.

Remember when Nintendo had to be sued to make them repair their (blindingly expensive) flimsy-ass joycons, and then they decided to make the Switch 2 with the exact same defective parts?

They'll become useless plastic when the eShop servers inevitably shut down. They have less functional longevity than an NES cartridge.

I doubt that'll be true.

The Wii, 3DS, and Wii U's shops still let you re-download games you previously purchased and also download updates for new physical games you get. I imagine it'll be a similar situation with the key cards, where if you get one after the eventual shutdown you'll still be able to download it.

Would I still prefer a card with the actual game on it? Of course. But I suppose this is still alright.

Okay but maro and like pokemon bro....

Sure, “physical media” that contains no game. Let me know when there’s a working Switch 2 emulator, because I’m done buying expensive computers where only a big corporation has root access.

Nintendo saw Sony go the way of Icarus and now they immediately wanna Capitalize on dat

Hate the game fr lmao

I'm just here to see how many people here still think that their own first party games are on those garbage key cards.

I got a physical copy of Skyrim at launch. Plunked it in my PC and the first thing I had to do was sign up for Steam, attach it there and download the game. I didn't have a Steam account at that point... not sure what the disc is acutely for.

You're right, but no one's going to run those servers forever. If Nintendo goes under, all that's for naught. If they decide the Wii or 3DS is no longer supported, we're all SOL. Meanwhile, Cartridges still work. Games that don't need to trigger a license check and have everything they need on the disc, will continue to work forever. That is the future we all want.

You can't really blame Nintendo for how third-party devs package their game.

The Wii was the best example of what I meant by them trying out something new, being the follow-up to the GameCube's poor sales, same with the DS.

They knew at the time they had to come up with something new and unique to capture the market.

This is a bit misleding, as Nintendo opened the door for Game Key Cards; physical cards that contain no game.

I'm biased towards having the physical game and contents, but it's true that GKC reduce some concerns on locking versus digital only, like being able to resell it, even though it's bad for archiving.

A Bandaid... in a mountain of anti-consumer practices

Nintendo’s more or less heading down a path Sony started on with the PS3. But in this case they start with some game-key cards... Eventually, it'll be all key cards or maybe give them altogether.