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In the buildup to the launch of the Switch 2, not everyone has been filled with pure, unadulterated hype. A lot of people are seriously unhappy about the new game-key cards – a strange blend of physical and digital games that are being offered as the physical version of many (but not all) upcoming Switch 2 games, which former Nintendo marketing leads Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang have been discussing in their latest video.
Game-key cards give users a full download of a game rather than allowing them to simply play it right out of the box, which has prompted concerns about game preservation, and generally hasn't been met particularly warmly by those who value physical media.
Former Nintendo Minute hosts Ellis and Yang – who previously served as Nintendo of America's former director of social media marketing and original content and senior manager of creator relations and original content, respectively – have now shared their own thoughts on game-key cards, and offered some extra insight into Nintendo's potential thought process (below).
To do so, they also spoke to another former Nintendo employee, who's not named in the video, but is apparently someone who worked on the company's retail team – specifically on the program that saw full game download codes sold on eShop gift cards in physical stores. Game-key cards, Ellis points out, can be seen as an "extension" to this idea.
"What they had to say was, you know, even going back to the [gift] cards that you can get now, Nintendo really wanted a physical representation of a digital product in a retail store," Ellis explains. "Which makes sense, because Nintendo really values the retail channels, more so than a lot of other gaming companies."
Furthermore, he mentions that the original game download gift card idea "was really widely adopted within the company, nobody was really questioning it, it was like 'Yeah this this seems like a great idea for us to kind of have it both ways.'"
Yang notes that "they make so much more money off of the digital games," so "of course they're going to be looking at other solutions to kind of fill that gap, or even try to transition people over to an all-digital world."
Interestingly, Ellis notes that "nobody really had very high expectations" for the gift card games, "but it went on to become a very popular program," and it certainly wasn't rejected by consumers. "That obviously gave them the confidence of like, 'Alright, something like this, this is actually maybe more in line with how people are getting things now, want to buy things, want to use things, than maybe we thought.'"
But if game-key cards do sell well, what could this mean for the future? Well, the former employee Ellis and Yang spoke to says we shouldn't rule out the idea that some first-party Nintendo games could eventually get the same game-key card treatment, rather than getting regular physical cartridges.
However, one key point that the three ex-Nintendo staff agree on is that it's highly unlikely the company is looking to phase out physical games entirely. "This person was also very clear in saying like there is going to be some form of physical," Yang adds. "The physical nature of video games is not something that's going away, and Nintendo is not going to take that away. They realize the importance of that."
Ellis later adds, "I can't see the physical games vanishing completely," while Yang says we'll have to "see this initial batch of sales" and how they might "inform the future decisions," but "I don't think that physical is ever going to 100% go away, I don't think Nintendo will ever do that.
"Talk about someone that knows their audience, they absolutely understand the audience, that their most dedicated audiences that just want this because they have this emotional tie to their brand, and they want to cultivate that. So I don't think that they're going to go out of their way to, you know, sever that bond."
Looking for more Nintendo Switch 2 news? Be sure to check out our roundup of Nintendo Switch 2 launch games, too.
