Nintendo will keep offering physical and digital games for Switch 2, according to Bill van Zyll, the company’s vice president and general manager for Latin America. Van Zyll described the approach during an interview with YouTuber Coelho no Japão, held a little more than a year after the console’s launch.
His comments came as first reported by GameSpot. Van Zyll said the company has no current plan to eliminate cartridge releases and intends to offer formats that match consumer preferences.
Cartridges remain part of the Switch 2 business
The hardware supports both game cartridges and downloads through the Nintendo eShop. That leaves players able to choose a retail copy, a digital purchase, or either format depending on the specific title.
Some releases still put the complete game on the cartridge. Nintendo’s first-party titles and Stellar Blade: Complete Edition are among the games cited as including their full contents on the card, rather than requiring buyers to fetch the main game files separately.
Game-Key Cards use downloads while allowing resale
Nintendo has also introduced Game-Key Cards for some games on the system. Those cards require a download, while the cartridge continues to serve as authentication needed to play the title.
The cards differ from a conventional physical release because they may not contain the complete game data. They are not tied to a user’s Nintendo account, however, which means owners can resell them. That distinction matters as Sony has reportedly planned a move toward an all-digital game marketplace beginning in 2028, while Nintendo is keeping an account-independent resale path available for certain releases.
Nintendo has not said whether this policy will stay unchanged through the current generation, which future games will use Game-Key Cards, or whether it has long-term sales or manufacturing targets for cartridge releases.
This article was produced with AI assistance from multi-source reporting and is published under our editorial standards.
