And why I continue to buy games and support sailing the seas.
I won’t purchase these. It’s nonsense.
Game preservationists say Switch 2 Game-Key Cards are ‘disheartening’ but inevitable
Submitted 3 weeks ago by inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
Comments
TwinTitans@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
AntiBullyRanger@ani.social 3 weeks ago
OP, please do us a favor of titeling post with the true thesis of the article, and not their disingenuous headlines. E.g.
Ziff Davis, Inc. $ZDhas contracts with $NTDOY & ¥7974.T that it selected three people to blurb out things that aligns with their portfolios:
Stephen Kick, CEO of Nightdive Studios (which specialises in modern remasters of older, often out-of-print games) said 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.”
Videogame Heritage Society co-founder Professor James Newman is somewhat less convinced that Game-Key Cards will be a major issue, noting that it’s rare for a game on a cartridge to still be the same game years after release.
“Even when a cartridge does contain data on day one of release, games are so often patched, updated and expanded through downloads that the cart very often loses its connection to the game, and functions more like a physical copy protection dongle for a digital object,” he explained.
pulido@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
People can use Torzu if they want to play Switch games for free.
There will definitely be an emulator for Switch 2 games, as well.
rabber@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’m just going to emulate then. Physical carts was one of the only thing keeping me spending money on Nintendo
Vopyr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Game-Kay Cards?
4am@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
It’s like a virtual license file for a game. It’s basically the same system as before but now you can trade them with people on your friends lists.
People with kids: be sure to set parental controls on this before your kids are bullied into sending away all the games you bought them
Vopyr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
After researching the question a little more on the Internet, I can confidently say that this is bullshit. Screw Nintendo.
Goretantath@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Not inevitable if people fought back… but people keep telling companies this shit is ok by paying them to screw everyone over. Companies used to have to replace your bugged cartridge with a patched one or risk backlash and profit losses.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Remember when people lost their shit over an Xbox console being all digital distribution and no ability to sell used games like 10 years ago maybe?
kotaku.com/that-xbox-one-reveal-sure-was-a-disast…
Nintendo fans are fucking masochists.
samus12345@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Nintendo sucks and all, but Xbox wanted the One to not work at all unless it was online.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
People also lost their shit over the PSP Go being digital distro only in a physical handheld console, and lost their shit so hard that Sony of all people walked it back with the Vita and built cartridges back into the spec. (And it became retroactively excusable once it was discovered how easily the PSP/Go could be hacked, and suddenly the Go was the desirable model for emulation and, er, backups. But that’s neither here nor there. Under its intended use, within its original lifespan, it was a stupid idea.)
If you ask me the entire point of a game console is to be a dedicated platform that you stick games in and it always works. If I wanted to fuck around with downloadable only content, games that are only keycodes, always-online DRM, and the inevitable day the servers all go dark I’d just game on PC. Which, come to think of it, in these modern times is exactly what I do anyway. I have game systems dating all the way back to the Atari VCS which I can to this very day if I feel like it slap a cartridge or disk in and they play. To me, there is immense value in that. Without that, there’s really no need for the “real hardware experience” for me. I can just emulate if any title comes out that I truly give enough of a shit about that I must play it.
So I have zero interest in the Switch 2, and thus it will be the first Nintendo console in history I don’t own, or aim to own (I do not have a Virtual Boy, much to my shame and embarrassment.) I imagine I’m not the only one. Nintendo’s been trying very hard to lose the plot, which for a company as profitable and famous as they are takes a real concerted effort. Congratulations to them, then, if that’s the goal – What we are witnessing here is very possibly the beginning of the end for big N.
emb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Not to defend Nintendo much here, but the situation with game-key-cards is at least better than that. You can freely trade, give away, resell them like any physical cart.
It’s a step up from digital in terms of freedom, but a step down in convenience (cart has to be in the system).
Compared to real, physical, data on the cart media though, these are a definite downgrade.
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
pycorax@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m willing to bet that the majority of people don’t really care about this. If they did, you’d see GoG do wildly better than Steam does. People like DRM and the convenience with having your library digitally available with the ease of installation, they just don’t like badly implemented DRM.
CidVicious@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’m willing to bet that 95% of their customers do not have an issue with this. Probably the majority don’t even realize that someone could have an issue with this. People are already very used to having to do big downloads with games and a lot of switch 1 games were already requiring half of the game to be downloaded due to large cart costs. Also tbh I don’t think it’s really a preservation issue as long as piracy exists.
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Consumers lost that fight decades ago with horse armor.