Ex-Nintendo marketing leads claim the company will never abandon physical media as they “realise the importance” of real games

Nintendo has been under hot fire recently for the creation of Game Key Cards for the Nintendo Switch 2 console. Designed to replace simple codes-in-a-box gubbins—although publishers are annoyingly still doing that—these cards are simple licenses on a cartridge that allow players to download a game while still allowing cartridges to be traded and resold.

As many publishers move away from physical game releases, the existence of Game Key Cards caused many to worry that Nintendo was starting to follow suit. However, former marketing leads for the iconic Japanese game company claim that they will never “100%” abandon physical media.

Nintendo won’t abandon physical media

Speaking on their YouTube show, former Nintendo of America director of social media marketing Kit Ellis and ex-original content and senior manager of creator relations and original content Krista Yang discussed the existence of Game Key Cards on the new Switch 2 console.

In the episode, Ellis and Yang talked to an unnamed former employee who specifically worked on the company’s retail side. The employee explained that the Game Key Cards are indeed an “extension” of the annoying codes-in-a-box releases, but they were expanded to be more useful to consumers while respecting retail stores.

“What they had to say was, you know, even going back to the cards that you can get now, Nintendo really wanted a physical representation of a digital product in a retail store,” they explained. “Which makes sense, because Nintendo really values the retail channels, more so than a lot of other gaming companies.”

The former employee explained that the former codes-in-a-box structure was “really widely adopted” with no one at the company “really questioning it” on the American side. However, the existence of Game Key Cards allow publishers and customers to “kind of have it both ways”.

Kit Ellis explained that Nintendo “make so much more money off of the digital games”, but the popularity of codes-in-a-box sales gave the company more confidence in exploring that angle with new products. This led to Game Key Cards which combined the popularity of digital with the company’s respect for physical media, which Ellis explains will never go away.

“The physical nature of video games is not something that’s going away,” Ellis explained. “And Nintendo is not going to take that away. They realize the importance of that… I can’t see the physical games vanishing completely… I don’t think Nintendo will ever do that.”

Ellis explained that Nintendo “absolutely understand the audience” and realise that the company’s most dedicated fans want a physical release of first-party games “because they have this emotional tie to their brand”.

The former marketing lead explained that Nintendo removing the physical option for fans would be going “out of their way to, you know, sever that bond”, possibly reducing customer attachment and decreasing sales. For now, every major first-party release from Mario Kart World to Pokemon Legends: Z-A all have a physical option available. After all, these are games that players want to own, and those releases aren’t going away anytime soon.

Nintendo Switch 2 is out right now with the eShop officially live and major releases now in players hands. (Well, at least for players who aren’t waiting for DPD to arrive.) Many fans and even developers have pushed back against the existance of Game Key Cards, but we’ll find out how popular the option actually becomes in the coming months.