{"id":1044,"date":"2025-04-08T03:22:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T03:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/?p=1044"},"modified":"2025-04-08T03:22:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T03:22:39","slug":"good-newsnintendo-switch-2-game-key-cards-wont-be-locked-to-a-single-console-or-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/archives\/1044","title":{"rendered":"Good news:Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Cards Won\u2019t Be Locked to a Single Console or Account"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Some good news for future&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/search?keyword=Nintendo&amp;post_type=product\">Nintendo<\/a>&nbsp;Switch&nbsp;2 owners: the new game-key cards won\u2019t be locked to the first console or account they\u2019re used on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.polygon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/04\/switch-2-cart-insert-bg.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=8.6125%2C0%2C84.375%2C100&amp;w=750\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Tetsuya Sasaki, general manager of Nintendo\u2019s technology development division, confirmed to GameSpot that game-key cards \u201cwill start up on the console or system that it is slotted into, so it\u2019s not tied to an account or anything.\u201d This means players can freely share or resell these cards, similar to traditional game cartridges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Game-key cards differ from standard physical cartridges. They don\u2019t contain the full game data\u2014instead, they act as a license key that unlocks a digital download of the game. According to Nintendo\u2019s support page: \u201cThe game-key card is your \u2018key\u2019 to downloading the full game to your system via the internet. After it\u2019s downloaded, you can play the game by inserting the game-key card into your system and starting it up like a standard physical game card.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The move appears to be a practical solution to modern game sizes, which are increasingly too large to fit on the Switch 2\u2019s 64 GB cartridges. It also caters to players who still prefer physical ownership over an all-digital model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, don\u2019t expect game-key cards to be cheaper. Despite being a hybrid format that still requires a download, there\u2019s no indication they\u2019ll cost less than traditional cartridges. For example, Mario Kart World is already priced at $80\u2014and that\u2019s before any impact from new tariffs announced by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep in mind: a stable internet connection will be required for the initial download. After that, the game can be launched as long as the game-key card is inserted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/search?keyword=Nintendo+Switch&amp;post_type=product\">Nintendo Switch<\/a>&nbsp;2 is scheduled to launch globally on June 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some good news for future&nbsp;Nintendo&nbsp;Switch&nbsp;2 owners: the new game-key cards won\u2019t be locked to the first console or account they\u2019re used on. Tetsuya Sasaki, general manager of Nintendo\u2019s technology development division, confirmed to GameSpot that game-key cards \u201cwill start up on the console or system that it is slotted into, so it\u2019s not tied to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-1044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nintendo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.batteryone.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}