How's that? Can't you buy & resell them on the used market? That seems like the only thing a physical cartridge gets you, and not shipping the outdated-on-day-one bits on the cart saves some money, too. Seems like win-win?
- You can't download the game after they have retired their servers (or if their servers are down / having issues)
- The game ends up taking a lot more storage space as updates are usually tiny when compared to the base game. For reference, the Switch 1 version of Zelda Tears Of the Kingdom takes 16 GB while the latest update takes only 500 MB.
Games shipping broken and needing day-1 updates is a consequence of our indifference towards physical media dying.
On the Switch and the Switch 2, I’ve never had a physical game that didn’t let me skip updates and play offline.
Probably due to a mix of Nintendo actually reviewing retail releases before they are “pressed”, and due to the fact that these are portable devices with no cellular.
I don’t understand the second part. Game key carts physically cannot fit the game or its updates, that is the entire point of their existence (storage is expensive, keys are tiny).
Experience the game, move on.
Of course, just my own preference, not saying others need to follow it.
I liked buying used games as a poor teenager and even poorer young adult, the only way I could afford it (and selling them once I was done).
But it sure was nice when you had the whole game sitting there, without having to rely on some download server still being around. I'm able to go grab a used GameBoy game off the shelf at the used game store, stick it in an old GameBoy, and outside of some games with batteries in them (repairable fwiw) it just works. This has been great for my little kids, as I trust them a lot more with a cheap GBA SP than I do the Switch when going out places. Way more pocketable, way less fragile, and the replacement cost (and repairability) is a lot better.
If I grabbed an old Switch off the shelf in 30 years, popped in a game key card, would I actually be able to play anything? Probably not. There's a good chance most of this Switch 2 will be useless in 30 years time.