CD Projekt exec says "the right thing to do" is release a real Nintendo Switch 2 cartridge for Cyberpunk 2077, not a game-key card, in message to other studios: "Do not underestimate the physical edition"

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With Cyberpunk 2077, developer CD Projekt Red is 1 of precise fewer third-party studios offering a proper, carnal crippled cartridge connected Nintendo Switch 2. As astir different third-parties alternatively opt for the caller game-key paper format – which incorporate nary crippled information connected the carnal cart – CDPR says that's not what Nintendo players want.

Asked if CD Projekt Red could've gotten distant with conscionable launching Cyberpunk 2077 connected a game-key card, concern improvement VP Jan Rosner tells The Game Business that "it’s not a substance of getting distant with something. Nintendo astatine carnal retail is inactive strong, and retail is, successful general, not going anywhere. I don't deliberation we'll soon acquisition a world wherever we're conscionable having each games digital."

Rosner says that due carnal crippled releases are "especially important for the Nintendo audience. We possibly could person got distant with it, but is determination a point? The close happening to bash was to person it retired connected the cartridge with a plug and play experience."

While crippled income person been sliding towards integer implicit the years, carnal games inactive marque up a important information of sales.

A study from GamesIndustry.biz successful 2024 suggested that, crossed the archetypal 40 weeks of the year, astir 25% of each caller games were sold done accepted retail successful Europe. But that fig includes some the digital-only Steam and the digital-focused Xbox platforms. On Switch, a whopping 65% of third-party games were inactive sold done carnal retail.

"Do not underestimate the carnal edition," Rosner warns different studios. "It's not going anyplace and Nintendo players are precise appreciative of carnal editions that are done right."

Clearly, Rosner isn't the lone manufacture fig who feels that way. Former Assassin's Creed and Far Cry pb Alex Hutchinson feels that game-key cards are "losing immoderate of what made the concern special," and Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick thinks they're "disheartening."

Popular rumor has suggested that Nintendo is offering lone the enactment of game-key cards oregon monolithic 64GB cartridges to publishers. While that circumstantial item is technically unconfirmed, it's surely cheaper for studios to absorption connected lower-cost game-key cards implicit due cartridges. Whether players are consenting to enactment that cost-cutting measurement remains to beryllium seen.

Check retired our usher to upcoming Switch 2 games.