Nintendo will “get away with” using its controversial new Game Key Card system due to the nostalgia players have for the brand.
That’s according to Far Cry 4, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Revenge of the Savage Planet director Alex Hutchinson, who has given his opinion on Switch 2‘s new Game Key Card system, under which some games will require a download rather than being playable from the cartridge itself.
“I hate it,” said Hutchinson in an interview with VideoGamer. “I think it’s sort of lame. I don’t know, I just feel like it’s getting away… we’re losing some of what made the business special. Trading Game Boy cartridges at school, or, you know, DS for the modern audience. There’s something nice about that.
“It’s funny that Nintendo is going to get away with it,” Hutchinson continued. “It just shows you the power of nostalgia in our business that the way they will beat up Microsoft versus Nintendo is just not the same, especially in Europe. It’s like, ‘oh, Nintendo’s doing it, alright, we’re not gonna say much.’”
Hutchinson’s latest game, the co-op sci-fi adventure Revenge of the Savage Planet, is out on consoles and PC this week.
Game-Key Cards are Nintendo’s new branding for cartridges that still require the game to be downloaded from the Switch 2 online store before the game can be played. The cartridge doesn’t contain the game data, rather it’s simply a ‘key’ that enables a download.
“Game-key cards are different from regular game cards, because they don’t contain the full game data,” Nintendo’s own description says. “Instead, the game-key card is your ‘key’ to downloading the full game to your system via the internet. After it’s downloaded, you can play the game by inserting the game-key card into your system and starting it up like a standard physical game card.”
So far, the vast majority of third-party Switch 2 games are Game-Key Cards, with only a few exceptions such as Cyberpunk 2077 and the Western version of Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion.
Game preservationists have come out against the system, calling it “disheartening.”
Stephen Kick, CEO of Nightdive Studios (which specialises in modern remasters of older, often out-of-print games) told GamesIndustry.biz that “seeing Nintendo do this is a little disheartening”, adding: “You would hope that a company that big, that has such a storied history, would take preservation a little more seriously.”
