Is There Any Point In Buying Nintendo Switch 2 Physical Games?

Being pressured to move to digital-only seems like the ongoing trend, thanks to Sony’s announcement that it’ll stop physical media production in 2028, along with rumors of Microsoft transitioning to a similar space, but with a different spin.

Of course, after everything, it’s natural to look to the next gaming giant to see whether the trend will continue. So far, Nintendo continues to offer physical cartridges without worry. This may be due to the strong sales of physical copies Nintendo gets — according to a recent financial report, Nintendo’s boxed titles still account for 38.5% of software sales.

Numbers, negative or positive, don’t always tell the full story about whether gamers prefer physical media over digital, or vice versa. But consumer choice makes the answer clearer. Allowing Nintendo Switch 2 physical cartridges to exist keeps the used market healthy, supports long-term, true ownership, and keeps the possibility of physical backward compatibility alive (future generations may drop it completely in favor of emulating old software through subscriptions or cloud gaming). So, yes, there’s still a point to buying physical Nintendo Switch 2 games, as there’s great upsides that gamers may desire and are willing to fight for.

Ownership of your Nintendo Switch 2 games is a big deal

The main points in the argument for preserving physical media boil down to how digital storefront distribution is handled and the inability to play your old collection. Thankfully, Nintendo did implement backward compatibility for Nintendo Switch 1 cartridges, and has also softened the blow of shutting down older storefronts, like the Nintendo eShop that sold Wii, Wii U, and 3DS titles.

While it isn’t possible to purchase new games in those respective stores, you can still at least download your old titles — that’s good news for those worried about the company suddenly abandoning support. However, despite the silver lining, the company still controls access.

Once those online servers are retired (because keeping up with strong cybersecurity practices on legacy storefronts might no longer be financially viable), you won’t be able to access those games. As such, there are no guarantees about how long that’ll last — maybe those servers stay online for 10 years, but in 20 years, that might change — it all just depends on whether there’ll be less consumer backlash by then and, likely, whether Nintendo has another method of playing your older games, like using a subscription service.

Nintendo Switch 2 physical media solves other consumer issues

Beyond game ownership, the next concern is affordability. Game prices have risen in recent years; Nintendo raised prices from $70 to $80 in 2025 for physical games. While Nintendo does plan to adjust pricing by making digital games cost less than their physical counterparts, it still alienates another market: buying used games.

As you might already know, retro gaming is in enough demand that you’re starting to see popular retail stores like GameStop open dedicated retro-branded locations. Whether the selection is worth paying for depends on what’s being circulated, which also largely depends on what consumers are trading. But if one were to stop physical games completely, that market would eventually stagnate, since there would be no new games left to sell.

However, Nintendo does offer an in-between: Game-Key Cards. It’s a decent middle ground that still gives gaming titles resale value. Still, the main qualm of using Game-Key Cards is storage space. Essentially, the Game-Key Card acts as a physical license authenticator to download the full game (it’s a key), whereas a true cartridge already stores the data and can be played from there. With a Nintendo Switch 2, the only way to expand storage is with a microSD Express card — which alone can run you at least $100 or more, depending on brand, size, and availability. Nintendo’s first-party titles shouldn’t be too demanding on storage, but once you start installing third-party games like Cyberpunk 2077 (64 GB), they can put quite a dent in your 256 GB of internal storage.