Nintendo

And when they disable the download because "game is old" or "we want to remake it" or "servers are too expensive" then what?

You don't own the game and you don't sell the game. You own a temporary license to play the game and sell that license.

Just like on Steam or any digital store front.

Sure the advantage is that you can resell your license, but let's see if those cards still do anything in thirty years, like games from thirty years ago do now.

They made a really shitty situation (not owning your games) a little less shitty.

p.s.

Obviously we are also in this mess because convenience trumps ownership, that's why Steam and business models like these grew so popular.

Over my twice dead body. This is effectively just waste for the sake of producing waste, as the article pointed out. It’s the worst of two worlds, you no longer own your game and you have to find a little nubbin to play it. Piracy should not produce a superior product.

To be fair I was talking about degrading from bad updates not just any update. Also, what I think is the most notable detail is that these physical key carts are treated as if you bought a game on the eshop, and downloads the game on your Switch. Not even onto the cart itself.

Do these key carts even have any internal storage on it at all? Probably does, for confirmation purposes.

It really is just e-waste. Because look at what Nintendo has degraded physical media into. Might as well just buy it on the eshop just so you can play the game without worrying abut having the cart in the console. Since the key cart is literally not much different from the digital.

If they don't restrict the key cart to one switch via a license, you might be right about selling digital games. Tbh I would prefer to sell a physical game, on the cart knowing that the game would always be available.