Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa just recently prevented offering precise figures about the Nintendo Switch 2’s Game Key Card sales and did not react to user feedback about them at an AGM while highlighting them as a choice for publishers to launch larger-sized titles.
Nintendo’s 85th Annual General Meeting for Shareholders saw financiers raising concerns about a range of topics, consisting of the evident absence of appeal of Game Key Cards amongst the video gaming neighborhood.
When an investor asked about the online viewpoint that Game Key Cards are “uninviting” and might possibly prevent third-party designers from porting their titles, if sales lag, Furukawa described that the brand-new format was presented due to increasing video game sizes for the portable.
The Switch likewise supports cartridges with approximately 64GB of storage area, which is viewed as a costly choice for publishers.
While Furukawa worried Nintendo’s dedication to “dealing with our third-party publishers to guarantee their assistance for our platform,” the Nintendo President did not use any specifics or sales figures. This lines up with earlier remarks made by Nintendo of America’s President, Doug Bowser, that Game Key Cards enable publishers to release their bigger and more immersive titles to the Switch 2.
Continuous reports recommend that publishers were offered the choice to select in between the more expensive 64GB cartridge or the Game Key Card, with no extra compromise. Nintendo has actually not verified or rejected the claim.
Video game Key Cards need gamers to download the whole video game. The cards work just as a physical license rather of consisting of any physical storage information for the title. This makes them successfully comparable to a digital license for a title that should be verified online before users can play.
According to reports from Game Business and Circana, Game Key Cards represented a bulk of first-party Switch 2 titles. An exception was CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077which delivered as a total video game on the Switch 2’s exclusive video game card. Cyberpunk 2077 was the only third-party launch title that held leading sales records, just tracking behind Nintendo’s first-party releases, suggesting that complete physical cartridges still hold prevalent appeal.
Niko Partners Analyst Daniel Ahmed shared that numerous aspects added to minimized third-party sales at launch. The Switch 2’s updated storage from 32GB to 256GB and microSD card assistance make digital downloads more friendly, however moving far from complete physical releases stays a problem for collectors and those with bad or restricted web connection.
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Rahim Amir Noorali – Tech Writer – 23 posts released on Notebookcheck because 2025
I am a UAE-based tech author who likes to develop and benchmark PCs both expertly and as a pastime. I add to several tech publications, consisting of TechRadar and NotebookCheck, along with Game Rant, where I focus mostly on news, commerce, and purchasing guides. When I’m not searching the web for the current in tech stories, you will discover me playing a video game of Civilization or DotA with buddies and frenemies alike while dropping suggestions for Apple television+’s Foundation to everybody I discover.
Rahim Amir Noorali, 2025-07- 2 (Update: 2025-07- 3)
