According to Bloomberg journalist Takashi Mochizuki, Nintendo has withdrawn most of the cartridges for Switch 2. Now developers have only two options: a 64 GB Game Card and new digital Game-Key Cards.
In the Switch generation, developers could choose between 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 GB cartridges, but not 64 GB. Now the alternatives have disappeared, and each decision is associated with costs and player reactions.
64-gigabyte Game Cards are more expensive, but allow you to fit the entire game on the media — as CD Projekt did with Cyberpunk 2077. Game-Key Cards are cheaper, but do not contain data: they are just "keys" to download the digital version. This scheme is similar to Xbox discs of recent years and causes customer dissatisfaction.
Marvelous USA head Ken Berry noted that releasing games cheaper than $50 on physical cartridges "may not be economically viable." Ubisoft Massive abandoned 64 GB cartridges for the sake of "performance": that is why Star Wars Outlaws was released on a Game-Key Card.
