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Game preservationists say Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are ‘disheartening’ but inevitable
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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I think the Nintendo game key cards are tied to the physical game cards so they can be sold or transferred to new owners.
Of course, I’m just talking about how the digital licensing landscape ended up shaking out. Nintendo also sells all their games digital and you can’t transfer those. Hell until the switch 2 you didn’t even have a unified account across devices.
Yet.
They've advertised Virtual Game Cards as a value-added feature to let your friends borrow games, but I'd bet good money they built out that infrastructure to comply with the potential for the EU to require used sales on digital.
Couple things there.
There are Virtual Game Cards, purchased and downloaded digitally from the eShop. These can now be traded, sold, gifted, loaned, etc. to other friends, which was not previously possible. (This could possibly require an NSO subscription, but I’m not clear if that’s true at all.)
There are physical game cartridges, which contain the actual game on them, and (from what I’ve heard) most games will be distributed this way.
Then, there are also physical carts that contain only the virtual game license file, thus that you have to possess the physical cart in order to download or play the game. Apparently, there are Switch 1 games like this already, but they are rare.
With the introduction of Virtual Game Cards, it is no longer possible (even on Switch 1) to play more than one copy of a game online at the same time, even with a min NSO Family subscription.
But it does allow you to transfer/sell games purchased from the eShop. That seems good to me, no?