Couple things there.
There are Virtual Game Cards, purchased and downloaded digitally from the eShop. These can now be traded, sold, gifted 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.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
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.
ms_lane@lemmy.world 3 days ago
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.