Home Of The Heroes

I don’t think many will argue with me when I say that the Nintendo Switch has been the home for the JRPG player for a few years now. It has over 300 physical rpgs. Enough to keep your backlog packed for years to come. In my time with the system, I have acquired stacks of those games digitally and many more physically. In fact,one of the biggest draws I have towards the Switch as a collector of video games and a JRPG player is that the full game is usually located on the physical cartridge. That may sound obvious and self evident, but That’s not always the case with modern games.

When you get a new Xbox game, you may have to download the full game from the internet before you can play. PlayStation games usually have the core game on the disc but with both PlayStation and Xbox a series of patches and updates bust be downloaded before you can play the game. Unfortunately, these downloads can be quite sizeable. This can result in hours of waiting before you can actually play the game, depending on your internet speed.

The most important aspect of the game data being on the cartridge is that with the Nintendo switch you actually own the game. Meaning that all the data required to play the game is in your possession. So years from now if you decided to hook up your Switch, it will be able to play your game regardless of the status of Nintendo servers. The game is yours to play at your leisure. Unfortunately, seemingly inherent property of Switch games is all about to change with the Switch 2.

Veritable Reality

I was in my house spending time with my family when the internet went out. I then spent the rest of the day trying to replace my router and update the drivers on some of my older devices. As I was doing this i thought wow if I had a Switch 2 and this happened, I wouldn’t be able to play today at all unless I got this problem fixed. The mere thought of that frustrating predicament elevated my heart rate. I almost became upset. It bothered me because This is a real possibility and my be reality for some gamers.

Some of the games on The Switch 2 use a new class of cartridge called the Game Key Cards(GKC). GKC’s will be a physical cartridge that directs your switch to download the actual game that you purchased. It technically more substantial than something like a digital download or a simple download code in a box because the physical cartridge is supposed to be tied to a code or serial number that is unique. That means you can trade it with someone easily or possibly even sell it to your local game store. This seems to be used mostly by third party companies,but so many third party companies are using GKC’s in Japan that I’m afraid this will become the default way to produce “physical ” media.

But what does this GKC situation change for a collector when compared to a digital download? Not very much. From what I’ve seen, you will get a game case with art insert. Unfortunately instruction manuals seem to be a forgotten relic so I don’t expect those to be included, but as far as the actual game the situation is unchanged. Your ability to play the game in the future would still rely on server health, download speeds and the whims of the developers. They could decide to change or remove whole portions of the game and you would have no say in the matter. There is no guaranteed preservation of the original game.

The New Default

The game I’m looking forward to the most for my Nintendo Switch 2 launch day experience is Bravely default. I downloaded the original demo for 3ds and spent dozens of hours on it before buying the full game. I picked up Bravely Second: End Layer and Bravely Default 2, so its only natural that I would want to get a remastered version of the original game on the Switch 2 . The idea that I could make this purchase and finally free Bravely Default from the shackles of the now defunct 3ds and allow me to play it on a modern console bounced around my mind constantly since the games announcement.

Well that idea is going to have to be put on hold because it turns out that Bravely Default Remastered will be a GKC situation. So I would have more I ownership of those old games than this new addition to the series. The amount of bother you may experience  when it pertains to this topic will most likely come down to why you collect video games. If you’re a scalper and you only care about reselling games for the highest profit then “get outta here, I’m gonna chase you outta here ” just kidding, mostly. More seriously, If you are collecting with the intentions of selling your games at some point then this may not bother you as much.

Beyond the forced scarcity of scalping, games can naturally up in price over time and can be sold for more than original MSRP. If the game is out of print and there is a sudden demand for the game then higher prices are expected. That is why If you hold on to your collection waiting for this kind of opportunity to sell certain games and items, then you may not see this as a problem. Regardless of whether or not there is data on the cartridge, If the item is valuable, you will make a profit as long as you’re able to sell it.

On the other hand if you’re a collector that wants to play their games in the future or hand them down to anyone then this can present a problem for you, because when you or that person goes to play the game later on, they will then be reliant on all the previously mentioned things to be in one hundred percent accordance for them to be able to play the game.

The last but not least of my concerns with the GKC situation is the weight of the Switch 2 launch on the Nintendo servers and the ability of the gamers to download the games. This does not have anything to do with being a collector, but as someone who intends to play the system and launch and hopefully for a long time afterwards, I am keeping an eye out for rain clouds over my parade and the parades of my fellow gamers.

Millions of people will buy that the Mario Kart bundle for the Switch 2 launch. As far as i know, that bundle comes with a download code for the game, so all of those people will be making a large download on launch day. Then we have to count the people who will be buying a GKC and need to make that download request to the Nintendo servers as well.

There is also a potential problem for some community members who will buy the system ,but may not be able to download their games. Everyone is not able to download 20 to 80 gigs in an hour or 2 in fact, the FCC says that 24 million people in America do not have access to high speed internet. That means a lot of our JRPG loving brothers and sisters may be plenty upset if they have trouble getting a game to play on their Switch 2 at launch even under perfect server conditions. People on metered connections who pay by the gig or every 1000 gigs they use a month will have to calculate not only the cost of a new game but also the toll it will extract from their monthly download allotment. I’m just hoping Nintendo is ready for this torrential flooding of traffic to go along with all the dollars they are making that day.

Hoping For The Best,Planning For The Rest

After a lot of thought and sifting through a ton of information about this GKC situation, Ill tell you my plans. I’m going to pick up my Switch 2 and if i have enough points, ill use them to get The Bravely Default GKC just to have one. if not then ill get bravely Default Digitally and hope that at some point down the line there is a physical release. yes, ill be forced to double dip, but Its worth it for me in this case because the series means a lot to me.

Some people have asked if i would pay more for a full fledged physical release. The answer is yes. I would pay 10 or 20 more for this game to come out fully on the cartridge because it would save me from having to spend the price of the game all over again to get a full game cartridge if one was ever released.

I honestly feel right now that ‘m going to avoid these game key cards as much as I can. If the full game is not on the cartridge then ill just get the digital version. it will be much more convenient to get and much less of a hassle to manage. I rather just cycle through my digital games and play them easily than have to swap one faux cart with another every time i want to play a different game. my hope is that this doesn’t become the new way games are made and distributed. I’m all for cutting game costs but for me, as a collector, this is not the way.