I get that Switch 2 games need faster storage, and that makes the traditional model of running games directly from the cart prohibitively expensive, but they could have just copied the Xbox/Playstation model of shipping physical games on slow media (Blurays in their case) and then having a mandatory installation step which copies the data to the fast internal SSD before you start playing. That way you're not entirely dependent on online services to play a physical game.

For the Switch any amount of flash memory for those game cards is expensive. They previously offered much smaller, slightly cheaper cards that started at 2GB.

Unfortunately this time they’re only offering 64GB cards or these key cards. I’m curious how much storage they have, I’m sure very little.

Brand name 64GB microSDXC UHS-I cards are $10 retail. Figure Nintendo can get the actual flash storage directly much cheaper than that, probably more like $3-5. That hardly seems like a meaningful cost saving measure for a physical game, especially on a console that's pushing upwards of $80 as the game price.

Maybe Sony was actually onto something with UMDs :P

I think it's silly that the conversation on preserving games revolves around hardware. The hardware is irrelevant. It's about the right to create digital backup for personal use. Whether the game is downloaded or burned on a disc, it's just software.

The main problem used to be about piracy, but I think now it's really about making games as a service (even if they're not online for gameplay) because it allows more forms of monetization. The conversation should be about making games into a digital product that you can download and own the files. Piracy still happens anyway, and maybe this could make companies solve the problem differently, like only allowing digital backup for trusted players.

Wouldn't it be nice if the Library of Congress or the Bodleian or some other prestigous clouty institution could demand that these published artworks be given to them as an unencumbered copy? I know that such a thing might have to include server code and some agreements on runtime environment, but I don't see that as insuperable.

This is culture and it's part of our patrimony. The privilege of getting to publish thinga and having copyright protection ought to include responsibilities to the society too.

The problem is the cost and knowledge base required to keep servers running. A game server is a big proprietary ball of spaghetti with hundreds of API endpoints and only the people who built it really know how it works[0]. It's expensive to keep those folks around and expensive to pay for the cloud services and SaaS tools they need to do their jobs.

All software has a "lifecycle" and has to be turned off at some point because no one is willing to pay the costs of keeping it running (with hosting and client changes as ongoing moving targets). We see this even with games that have sales! So ones that don't have sales are not likely to attract anyone to pay for such staff.

[0] Source: I spent 2 years inside a studio owned by "big gaming."

Games with single-player mode must be playable in a fully offline mode. Would solve your (very valid) issue for a large chunk of games.

It could be paid by taxes, and run by government. Something like the Internet Archive (not sure if that's public but the entire Internet is much larger than all games put together).

Yes that would be nice. It could definitely be a non-profit and get a lot of support. Then they could grant access to past games that are no longer on the market. Ideally anyone can just make their own backups without publishing the copy. I still think there are solutions to allow this but companies want games a service to make more money.

> Even when a cartridge does contain data on day one of release, games are so often patched, updated and expanded through downloads that the cart very often loses its connection to the game, and functions more like a physical copy protection dongle for a digital object

From preservation's perspective even the day-one release, no matter how buggy it is, is worth preserved. The speedrun community, for instance, often need to fix on an exact version of the game to compete, and a physical copy (implying a pinned revision) is often easier to agree on.

There are exceptions to this, when the day-one release is not playable. It is the trend happening in the software industry -- release early, even if it is literally unusable, because we can push a patch via the network -- that is disheartening.

In the computer games industry pretty much everything has been download only for some time as the assets are too large for DVD and BD never caught on for PC. Places like GOG provide unrestricted offline installers but the majority are provided via a storefront like Epic or Steam.

The worst case scenario for preservationists is for games to become a streaming service via cloud gaming, which publishers may like since it pretty much prevents piracy and allows them to charge a monthly fee rather than a one time license fee. For movies and music streaming exclusives aren't a new thing and improvements in network latency and bandwidth are making game streaming more and more viable.

Interesting point about PC going digital-only as Nintendo is a fascinating counter-example.

While they offer digital downloads on the eShop, their pricing actively discourages it.

Case in point: I just bought my kid a new first-party Switch game. Physical copy on Amazon was ~25% cheaper than the identical digital version on Nintendo's own eShop. Even my 9-year-old noted how illogical it seems, the physical version requires manufacturing, shipping, retail markup, yet costs significantly less than the digital bits that have near-zero marginal cost.

It strongly suggests Nintendo wants the physical retail channel to thrive, or values the perceived permanence/resale value of cartridges.

This context makes the Switch 2 "gamekey" cartridges (physical auth token, digital download) fit their pattern of valuing a physical artifact and retail presence, even if the data delivery shifts.

Fortunately for everyone, all of the "stream games as a service" initiatives failed completely. Consumers aren't really interested due to obvious drawbacks, and vendors aren't interested in provisioning enough or good enough hardware to solve those drawbacks.

Imo if Gamepass is allowed to survive, it's end game is a tier, or maybe included at no extra cost with some limitations, a cloud gaming component.

Gamepass is the biggest threat in turning games into subscriptions, and unfortunately a growing subset of people will only play games on Gamepass. We've dodged Gamepass exclusives for now, but for how long?

The article already touches on this, but in the modern day the games that exist on physical media are pretty much useless without their zero-day patches. Putting physical media aside, companies rarely make older builds available, so even when media contains a game and servers are up there is already plenty of ‘lost media’ if you consider old and interesting (potentially hilariously broken) old builds of virtually every game.

I’ve realized this at some point, but video games are ephemeral and should really be enjoyed in the now. Even if you can perfectly preserve a game, and the means to play it, tastes change so quickly in gaming that a game that’s fun today might not be enjoyable even a year later.

“Plays are ephemeral and should really be enjoyed in the now. Even if you can perfectly preserve a play, and the means to perform it, tastes change so quickly in theatre that a play that’s entertaining today might not be enjoyable even a year later.” - you, in the 1620s, probably.

Now imagine that the play cannot be altered (game build), it can only be performed on a specifically shaped stage (hardware requirements), actors can only be replaced by lookalikes (‘remaster’ tweaks), it can only be performed with a full theatre (online requirements), and the playwright retains the only copy of the play (source code).

Then you start to approach the problem that is gaming.

These day0/day1 patches and updates usually weigh a lot less than the base games, on Switch the appeal of cartridges is to avoid filling up storage.

Before the Switch, save files were also stored on cartridges, making physical medium far more appealing than the mess digital was on the 3DS (if you owned more than 1 console).

> Yes - some things go out of fashion for a while, but trends almost always cycle back.

Exactly, this is even supported by Nintendo's own services offering emulation of their older systems. There is clearly demand for the ability to older games.

Capitulation to an "inevitable" fate of download only games is just taking the easy way out by not sticking to your own core values. I have personally pre-ordered a Switch 2, but I will not being purchasing any online only cartridges or download only software.

We haven't had the watershed moment that brings it into focus for gamers at large yet, The Crew was close. But Nintendo has kept the download servers going for all of their systems which has provided a false sense of security. Once those start being shut down maybe we'll see some actual response. Though with the introduction of Gamecube emulation on the Switch 2, they are only a small step away from emulating the Wii and giving people another scapegoat for their lazy acceptance of lack of ownership.

With physical games, you're tied to how long your console and cartridge physically last.

With digital games, you're tied to how long the console's e-store lasts, which is guaranteed to be sunset.

Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a game that I was willing to play on Steam.

> Eventually I couldn't justify buying the console version of a game that I was willing to play on Steam.

I do that too but doesn't the same rule apply to Steam, too? (that is if it goes down, you can't download the games anymore?).

That's true, but in general it's easy to archive games from Steam and (as long as the publisher doesn't use any 3rd-party DRM) they're trivial to crack.

I buy my games from Steam because of the convenience and to support the developers, but if, say, Gaben kicks the bucket and Steam suddenly closes/turns evil I can just as easily pirate all of my games back. So from a game preservation standpoint Steam isn't that bad compared to the locked down consoles and their walled gardens.

That is why I buy my games on GOG. They don't have DRM, you can legally backup all your games.

Plus they are EU-based which decreases political risk in the current political climate.

Steam is always given an exception in these conversations because they’ve generally behaved - but that can easily change overnight from a black swan event.

Some future manager will look at a graph and think monetization can be improved X% while only losing an estimated Y% of users. It is guaranteed to happen. Question is only if most in the current generation will outlive free access to their entire Steam library or not.

Valve quite famously doesn't have managers and instead runs a "flat" org chart.

With pirated games, you can play them forever.

There already exist games which you can (illegally) play today only because they were archived by pirates. However with the consoles' security getting better, piracy not being as widespread as back in the day and the industry not being interested in game preservation it's also a matter of time before we start permanently losing games again.

Hot take: when a game is not able to be preserved, it is not worthy of preservation efforts. When it's not worthy of being saved for the future is it even worth playing today? My answer is no.

I can play all the on disk ps3 games I own, the downloadable ones are dust on the wind.

Disc rot is a thing unfortunately. And they are no longer making new PS3s.

It's an imperfect solution to a real problem—Nintendo wants to use cartridges instead of discs for some good reasons, some not-so-good reasons—but the costs per cartridge are too high for cartridges big enough to hold modern games.

But you can look at it as a transferable license to otherwise digital games, and that's not bad. A console with entirely (or almost entirely) digital games would have no used game market, and that sucks both for sellers (which I don't do), and buyers (which I happily do).

It would be nice if there was some legal protection for the buyer that, by selling a physical license, that Nintendo be required to make the download itself available for some time period > 20 years.