Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa skirts Switch 2 game key card query at AGM

Nintendo’s 85th Annual General Meeting for Shareholders saw investors raising questions about a variety of subjects, including the apparent lack of popularity of Game Key Cards among the gaming community.

When a shareholder inquired about the online opinion that Game Key Cards are “unappealing” and could potentially discourage third-party developers from porting their titles, if sales lag, Furukawa explained that the new format was introduced due to increasing game sizes for the handheld.
The Switch also supports cartridges with up to 64GB of storage space, which is seen as an expensive option for publishers.

While Furukawa stressed Nintendo’s commitment to “working with our third-party publishers to ensure their support for our platform,” the Nintendo President did not offer any specifics or sales figures. This aligns with earlier comments made by Nintendo of America’s President, Doug Bowser, that Game Key Cards allow publishers to publish their larger and more immersive titles to the Switch 2.

However, ongoing rumors suggest that publishers were given the option to choose between the pricier 64GB cartridge or the Game Key Card, with no additional compromise. Nintendo has not confirmed or denied the claim.

Game Key Cards require players to download the entire game. The cards function only as a physical license instead of containing any physical storage data for the title. This makes them effectively equivalent to a digital license for a title that must be validated online before users can play.

According to reports from Game Business and Circana, Game Key Cards accounted for a majority of first-party Switch 2 titles. An exception was CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077, which shipped as a complete game on the Switch 2’s proprietary game card. Cyberpunk 2077 was the only third-party launch title that held top sales records, only trailing behind Nintendo’s first-party releases, indicating that full physical cartridges still hold widespread appeal.

Niko Partners Analyst Daniel Ahmed shared that multiple factors contributed to reduced third-party sales at launch. The Switch 2’s upgraded storage from 32GB to 256GB and microSD card support make digital downloads more approachable, but shifting away from full physical releases remains an issue for collectors and those with poor or limited internet connectivity.