Are Nintendo Switch Game Cards Physical or Digital Media?

You bought a physical Game Card in the store, you remove it from it's package and you insert it into your Nintendo Switch. So it physical media right? Well not so fast!!! Take another look at that Game Card it's a physical cartridge... you can hold it. But what you may not know is the game may not be on the Game Card or it may be missing major portions. The Game Cards used in the Switch are non-writable and save data and game updates are stored in the console's internal memory. So that "day one patch" is not on your physical cartridge. It has been downloaded from the Nintendo servers to the memory on your switch system. So when you buy a used game you will need to re-download any patches direct from Nintendo's server. What will happen to that game when the servers disappear?

The lines between digital and physical media are further blurred because Nintendo has a unique identifier on to each game card. Nintendo can track how many systems you put that cartridge in, they know how much you play, they know what you play and they even have the power to ban a cartridge from playing a game due to some kind of misuse. This can benefit the consumer in our present day interconnected world by keeping hackers and cheaters out of "the game". But what if you buy a Game Card that has been banned by Nintendo?

This power is far removed from that Wii CD or NES Cartridge days where you owned and could play as much as you want where ever you want and no one else needed to be part of that transaction. But both gamers and collectors are now stuck in between the hackers and Nintendo as they battle for control.

So what can we do? How does it affect collectors? Will our "Legacy Score" help collectors keep the better games and preserve them into the future? Will "day one patches" make collecting physical copies obsolete? How will this affect the legacy of the Nintendo Switch system?

Right now we have a lot more questions then answers as we travel into the future. But we can help by providing a place for the the the conversation to take place in our fourm, and use our "Legacy Score" to help you collect quality games that you should be able to play in 30 years. The Switch Kraft Channel on You Tube has discussed the very issue and has encouraged everyone to share the video below with a friend to keep this discussion going. So visit his channel watch the video below and part in the conversation.