Final Fantasy VII Remake Director Says The Game-Key Cards Answers For The Nintendo Switch 2 Limitations

The arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2 has come with its own suite of problems. Although the hardware is more capable to deliver games aligned with Xbox & PlayStation, the options to provide said titles on the system is the problem. Enter Game-Kay Cards: although not fully practiced, a portion of the game would be on the cartridge while the remainder is an online install to properly load the full version.

In response, we’ve seen distributors answer to only provide titles with the full game on the cartridge. Additionally, consumers have also paid to show that physical releases matter: over 75% of Cyberpunk 2077 purchases were for the physical version. And, even the Japan National Diet Library is not opting in to preserve these versions as it does not meet credentials to be archived.

Recently, publishers like Ubisoft have stated that more ambitious titles require the Game-Key Card to properly deliver the game to meet standards for an optimized release. Now, Square Enix is also chiming in on the conversation. Speaking to JPGames, Final Fantasy 7 Remake game director Naoki Hamaguchi elaborated that the shortcomings of the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware requires the Game-Key Cards to fill in the gaps.

“Yes, I have heard the reaction that the various Nintendo gamers have towards the key card. I understand where they’re coming from, definitely. I can see the things that they are maybe annoyed with, maybe why they don’t like it, and I get that, I really do. But certainly, among developers, the discussion about the key card format is perhaps a bit different to what the fans might expect.”

He continues: “It’s always, I think, looked at in terms of the memory restrictions, and that is an issue, that’s not something we can ignore, the fact that the standard cartridge, like you say, has a smaller memory, and we have to work around that. But I think perhaps the biggest issue for developers, certainly for people like us who make high-end HD games, is the loading speed, because you compare that to the solid-state drive and the speed you can get from loading from that, it’s going to be inferior to that, it just has to be, that’s the way the media works, physically.”

Hamaguchi adds: “This is just my personal thoughts about this, but I kind of like, if possible, maybe Nintendo fans to understand the key cards and maybe come to accept it as part of the culture of gaming on Switch, because it allows more opportunities. It’s an option, it’s not that everyone has to use it, but it’s another option to deliver the games to fans, and I think we could lose out on opportunities, there may be people, if we didn’t have that option, who wouldn’t get to play the game. So from a developer’s perspective, it allows us to bring more high-end experiences to Switch players, and I think that’s a good thing.”

Are you behind Hamaguchi’s comments concerning Nintendo Switch 2 Game-Key Cards?

Source: JPGames