Nintendo has put out a survey asking Switch and Switch 2 owners their thoughts on buying digital and physical versions of games, opening up the floor for the many, many people who hate the controversial Switch 2 game-key cards.
Game-key cards have been one of the most divisive parts of the Switch 2's launch. Certain games have been released on a physical cartridge, but rather than actually containing the full game, they allow users to download a digital version of the game that they can't play without keeping the cartridge (the game-key card) inserted.
There've been many complaints about the potential impact on game preservation and ownership, as well as the general annoyances of having to download a supposedly physical game and keep the card in the system to play it. Now, though, users have a chance to share their thoughts with Nintendo in a more official way.
As shared on Reddit, the survey directly asks participants if they prefer buying physical or digital games for Nintendo Switch, and why. For the benefits of buying physical games, users can select reasons such as the cartridges providing "a stronger sense of ownership," the fact that they can be bought second-hand at a cheaper price, that they simply "like collecting physical games," and more.
Beyond that, Nintendo lists various ways to buy Switch and Switch 2 games – a classic physical cartridge, an eShop download, a code-in-box version, download codes from retailers, and finally, "physical, requiring digital download" (AKA a game-key card) – and asks how likely users would be to buy them. Here, participants can outright say that they "definitely would not buy" certain versions of games, and I can already imagine what those results are probably going to look like for the game-key cards.
Nintendo apparently sent out a similar survey in Japan last month, so the company definitely seems keen to gather users' thoughts on the matter. As one user on Reddit has pointed out, however, on this occasion, this appears to be a targeted survey, and even though those who've received it have been helping share access around, it may be that Nintendo doesn't want to count the extra surge of responses it's ended up receiving. Even so, hopefully it can still help convey players' points more directly than simply sharing complaints across social media.
As fans reject Switch 2 game-key cards, former Nintendo marketing leads say it's unlikely that physical games will ever "100% go away," because "they realize the importance of that."
