Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Since Sony announced they are ending physical disc production in 2028, the question everyone is asking is whether Nintendo will follow. My answer is no, and it has nothing to do with Nintendo being nice.
An opinion and analysis piece on Nintendo, physical media and why cartridges are not going anywhere.
The first reason is simply timing. The Switch 2 is barely a year old with a long life ahead of it, and the entire hardware and retail ecosystem was built around cartridges. You do not rip the format out from under a console you have only just launched.
The bigger reason is money. Unlike Sony, Nintendo makes money from physical media twice over. They sell games like anyone else, but they also manufacture the proprietary cartridges themselves, meaning every third party publisher shipping a Switch 2 physical release has to buy those carts from Nintendo. At a reported 16 dollars per 64GB cartridge compared to under a dollar for a Blu-ray, that is an enormous structural revenue stream that exists purely because physical exists. Game-Key Cards are the clearest proof of this, created specifically to keep physical viable for publishers who could not absorb the full cart cost, protecting that revenue rather than moving away from it. Meanwhile Nintendo eats that cost on every first party release, shipping full carts when the cheaper option is sitting right there.
The video also covers the strongest counterargument, that Nintendo's digital sales hit 54.6 percent in FY2026, and why that number means something very different when Sony sits at 78 percent. Plus the Circana data showing physical software sales on Nintendo platforms up 26 percent year on year, helping produce the first increase in US physical game spending since 2009.
Let me know in the comments whether you think Nintendo will hold the line on physical, and whether Game-Key Cards are a fair compromise.
#Nintendo #NintendoSwitch2 #PhysicalMedia
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCAJzRD4D3pmd8Jnr4VUY73Q/join
Like, Comment and Subscribe! bit.ly/SubscribeToXiphos
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Xiphos_YT
Follow me on twitch and hang out LIVE!: twitch.tv/xiphos_live
Let's get 5 likes on this video!
Hope you all enjoy and have a nice day!
-- Watch live at twitch.tv/xiphos_live
Since Sony announced they are ending physical disc production in 2028, the question everyone is asking is whether Nintendo will follow. My answer is no, and it has nothing to do with Nintendo being nice.
An opinion and analysis piece on Nintendo, physical media and why cartridges are not going anywhere.
The first reason is simply timing. The Switch 2 is barely a year old with a long life ahead of it, and the entire hardware and retail ecosystem was built around cartridges. You do not rip the format out from under a console you have only just launched.
The bigger reason is money. Unlike Sony, Nintendo makes money from physical media twice over. They sell games like anyone else, but they also manufacture the proprietary cartridges themselves, meaning every third party publisher shipping a Switch 2 physical release has to buy those carts from Nintendo. At a reported 16 dollars per 64GB cartridge compared to under a dollar for a Blu-ray, that is an enormous structural revenue stream that exists purely because physical exists. Game-Key Cards are the clearest proof of this, created specifically to keep physical viable for publishers who could not absorb the full cart cost, protecting that revenue rather than moving away from it. Meanwhile Nintendo eats that cost on every first party release, shipping full carts when the cheaper option is sitting right there.
The video also covers the strongest counterargument, that Nintendo's digital sales hit 54.6 percent in FY2026, and why that number means something very different when Sony sits at 78 percent. Plus the Circana data showing physical software sales on Nintendo platforms up 26 percent year on year, helping produce the first increase in US physical game spending since 2009.
Let me know in the comments whether you think Nintendo will hold the line on physical, and whether Game-Key Cards are a fair compromise.
#Nintendo #NintendoSwitch2 #PhysicalMedia
Join this channel to get access to perks:
youtube.com/channel/UCAJzRD4D3pmd8Jnr4VUY73Q/join
Like, Comment and Subscribe! bit.ly/SubscribeToXiphos
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Xiphos_YT
Follow me on twitch and hang out LIVE!: twitch.tv/xiphos_live
Let's get 5 likes on this video!
Hope you all enjoy and have a nice day!
-- Watch live at twitch.tv/xiphos_live
