I tested 100 Nintendo Switch cartridges I own to see how many would pass "truly physical"
The stats:
41 games REQUIRE a download, or else will not run (basically a game key-card??)
43 games CAN be played, despite having a downloadable patch / free DLC
16 playable immediately
#TribLovesVideoGames
The stats:
41 games REQUIRE a download, or else will not run (basically a game key-card??)
43 games CAN be played, despite having a downloadable patch / free DLC
16 playable immediately
#TribLovesVideoGames
Comments
I mentioned later on in the thread a similar thought
I was curious how this experiment would turn out if done on a brand new or factory-reset Nintendo Switch
https://bsky.app/profile/tribdinosaur.bsky.social/post/3lpigc52ckc2p
As Gabe Newell once said, "Late is just for a little while, suck is forever."
No needing Internet, no requiring network access, it just launched.
I miss the reliability.
This is the same that will happen to all these modern consoles in a decade or so. We are already able to emulate on them.
and pirecy
and the devs earning more than like 4.6% of the sales
but yeah an online connection to play singleplayer or local multiplayer games is absolute ass
thus highlighting the disadvantage of physical gaming~ cartridges that just won't read
that game was Megamax Battle Network Legacy Collection
did not load on my Switch Lite, but did on my Switch OLED
But yesterday I must have tried 5 times to get it to load, and it would not
but right now, I tried a couple of times, and it did load
so, it's an unreliable cartridge for this Lite
I tried it on the OLED, and it worked more reliably
Either way, this is one aspect where Digital games have the advantage, because you don't have to worry about issues with either the cart or the cartridge slot
I used my already-used Switch Lite, then deleted the cartridge games to test each one out
I tested 100 of them, so there's a chance a game you wanna ask about is on the list
(So ask if you want~ I can check if I tested it)
8 of them were first-party Nintendo published titles
and the other half are all third party games
(Care to guess which first-party Switch games worked immediately without a download?)
#TribLovesVideoGames
Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp
Astral Chain
Kirby and the Forgotten Land
Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe
Metroid Dread
Metroid Prime Remastered
Princess Peach Showtime
WarioWare Get It Together
but those 43 games prompt you with the option to either Start Software based on what's in the cartridge,
or Download the latest patch / update
Some games will work out-of-the-box, UNTIL you download a patch or update for it-- THEN it will become "Download Required" each time you place it in
Realistically, this shouldn't be a problem, since you usually don't delete games after removing the cartridge
I'll list some of the first-party Nintendo Switch games that encountered this weird quirk / basically became a game key-card:
Breath of the Wild
Mario Odyssey
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Luigi's Mansion 3
Splatoon 3
Fire Emblem Three Houses
I assume these are because of DLC updates
For example if I was playing BOTW and saved in a DLC area, then loaded it up on an earlier version, the game would have no idea where I'm supposed to spawn and could lead to crashes or save data loss.
Splatoon 3 has an early version on its cartridge, only the singleplayer was finished and multiplayer was a day 1 patch, so it's still got a decent amount of data ready to play
Cartridge is still more storage efficient than a key!
Or perhaps, I could try removing the save data from the console and leaving them on the Cloud for now~
only a single-digit number of my games don't have that custom spine
Either way, I'm liking the awareness to the issue of games being on the media you buy and ownership as a whole coming to light