Is Nintendo the savior of physical games?

I love that Nintendo continues to support physical games and that many games are complete or near complete on the cartridge. Speaking of cartridges, who doesn’t like cartridges? Helps with portability and also saves space. And lastly, Nintendo games continue to have strong resell value. When the game is complete and on cartridge , that helps its value. Now not every game is like this, but I feel like Switch fans push for this and therefore publishers take notice. We get limited editions or physical copies of games we may not have gotten. One recent example is Bayonetta 1. They’re releasing the game on cartridge due to demand.

So I ask you, GD, is Nintendo the savior of physical games? Seems so to me.

Hmm, to an extent. I still buy a lot of physical for PS4/PS5 but it's rarely a benefit outside trading/ lending purposes.

Memory on a Switch is tedious, so physical saves a lot of space if one plays more than five games across the years.

I don't think PlayStation or X Box make a difference from physical to download in terms of install size; however Switch is a huge difference. Adding another feather-in-cap reason to go physical.

Possibly. It's weird how Nintendo went from Cartridges to Game Disc, then Optical Disc, then back to cartridges on the Switch.

Whereas Playstation and Xbox have stuck with an optical disc since the beginning

Nintendo went with physical because they make money selling their blank, proprietary cartridges to publishers. They then make money when they take their cut of each sale of a game. And, on top of that, they force publishers to price their digital versions the same as the physical copies.

It's the ultimate double-dip, with a side of price-fixing.

Nintendo isn't the savior of anything but themselves. If digital was more profitable, they'd have done it. But they have quite a little scheme going on right now, and with their exclusivity and their fanatics gobbling the games up, they have cornered their part of the market.

There are other practical reasons as well. Pretty smart from a business standpoint, can't say it's really great for consumers though.

Edit:

Link to article explaining it.

Anyway, Nintendo is actively overcharging you. They don't give a fuuuuuuuck about you or your options.

Here's a dirty little secret about the Nintendo Switch: Nintendo actually makes some money from the manufacturing of its proprietary cartridges, along with the licensing agreements companies must enter to create games for the system. Not only that, but Nintendo also requires publishers to price their digital games the same as their retail versions. So if a publisher charges more for a cart-based version of a game, the eShop version has to sit at that same price point — and Nintendo makes more on the digital sale as a result.

...

As cheap as flash storage is these days, it's still not as cost effective as manufacturing a Blu-Ray disc. This makes developing for the Switch a little more expensive than it is for other consoles, and explains why some Switch games sit at a higher price point than their Xbox One or PlayStation 4 counterparts.

TL;DR (*edit: not really):

• Nintendo makes money selling blank catridges to publishers. Profit for Nintendo, loss for publishers/developers.
• Nintendo makes money [again of the sale of cartridges] when those publishers sell games to you. Another profit for Nintendo, loss for publisher/developer.
• Nintendo forces publishers to price-fix their game so their digital versions (that should be cheaper) stay at the same price as their physical games (which are more expensive). Loss for consumer.
• Nintendo could have gone with optical storage which would have been inexpensive relative to flash storage, but the profit (see above points) potential was too high with cartridges to do that, which is why you see old Nintendo games still at high prices. Loss for consumer, also publishers/developer.
• It's cheaper for them to build a console without an optical disc drive and to go with cartridges, but more expensive for you the consumer to buy cartridges for that console. Of course, they could have emphasized digital which would have been cheaper than BOTH physical options (disc or cartridge) but...money.

In summary, Nintendo is a perfect example of why physical is terrible for consumers and developers.

It's more a case of being mutually beneficial. Nintendo makes money out of its physical distribution setup (though i would think all console manufacturers do). There is probably a bit of "thats the way we have always done it" too within nintendo HQ.

It's nice. I would not like to be limited to only being able to get switch games through the e-shop. I have no confidence in the long term prospects of the purchases i make on the e-shop (which are very few).

It still makes sense for nintendo to maintain a strong worldwide distribution setup too. they make hardware, peripherals and games. They are not a SAAS company. They are a toy maker (not a bad thing at all).

More modern flash tech has shown that its good enough to deal with the speed requirements of a PS4/X1 level game too so it's just a question of costs. I would think the version of storage they use in their own carts has upgrades available too. So there is no reason why Nintendo can't continue to use them for their next system...unless their next system is so PC conquering, PS5/XSX crushing beast of a machine....which is very unlikely.

Whatever the opinion may be with Nintendo, the ability of playing its software on a physical format is a benefit to many consumers. Reselling, ease of use, being a collectible, trading, etc..., are all strengths.

They are helping keep it afloat, but not the saviors. They would need to cut the price to publishers of their bigger carts to really get much credit. Most companies opt for the 8 gig one, then have you dowload the other half of the game.

I play pc or mobile games so having a physical copy isn't really necessary. If I do bite the bullet and buy another console of some kind I'd definitely go for one that takes physical media. Just a personal preference of mine. I do miss the days when pc games game in big boxes with cool art and manuals, maps, and other things in the box.

@mrbojangles25: interesting!

It is super interesting. I hate corporate worship of any kind, so I had to do my research when I saw this thread and I learned a lot.

To counter:

• More expensive to buy.
• Price-fixing (of sorts) keeps prices high, even years after release.
• More expensive to publish, limits the amount of games released.
• Morally questionable business ethics that should not be supported.
• Extra equipment to carry (i.e. instead of just carrying the console, now you need to carry the console and the cartridges...and if it's anything like GameBoy you probably bought a carrying kit on top of that lol).

I'm curious how large the trading and collectible community is, and whether it's really that much of a benefit to that many people. For every person that has a 15 year old copy of some Pokemon game that might be worth 150 dollars, I imagine there's about three million people that lost that game 14 years ago 😋😉

With that said, it is certainly a unique aspect of Nintendo hardware that people seem to like, and I suppose that is all that matters in the end.

This can't be stressed enough. Very common in Japanese companies.

Disk versions will not end. I still have all my ps1,ps2,ps3 games. I payed 1 price for them and still have them. No yearly cost. Digital will never replace disk version and nor will this streaming crap that they think 'while they have no brain' is the future.

Until access/stability is increased for true high speed connection AND significant pros (price, resale, etc..,) outweigh the cons of digital to physical, it won't be as well received with open arms as some would want.

The switch is the only system i collect physical.

Same.

Same with me. Everything else is digital.

@SolidGame_basic: Nintendo, the savior of physical games? I don't think so! To begin with, the PS5 and Xbox Series both offer physical media still. Nintendo did what they always do and went with the "making proprietary hardware so we can make money selling the media to publishers" route. They're also concerned with piracy, as always, so I'm not surprised to see Nintendo going with yet another proprietary media format. Most Switch games don't even have a physical release because it'd be too costly and digital downloads are more popular anyways. For a portable console, isn't it better to have all your games on a single MicroSD card than having to bring all those cartridges around like it's 1995 again?! I don't like cartridges and I don't think they're better than optical media. Cartridges are bulkier and they hold less data. I know Switch games are really small, but what's it going to be like when you have 200 of them to store? I'd rather have 200 optical discs stored in a CD binder than have to organize 200 of those Switch cartridges! Sometimes I buy Switch games because the physical copy is cheaper (especially when Target does "buy 2 get 1 free" sales on video games), but the majority of my Switch library is all digital. It's mostly a handheld console for me and as I mentioned it's a lot more convenient to have all the games on the MicroSD card when traveling!

I'd rather have 200 Switch carts than 200 XSX discs when talking about physical space requirements. Even transporting games is much easier and safer with the Nintendo platform.

Physical copies of Nintendo games appear to hold its value leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

Whatever console the Nintendo physical are valuable.

Nintendo is the savior of childish and stupid doodle-dee-dum kiddie games, that´s what it´s mostly saving.

In my opinion, I'd say so. I know a lot of people that're predominantly PC gamers and own a console or two purely to play Nintendo titles.