Nintendo VP Assures Switch 2 Owners There Are No Plans To Ditch Physical Games

Nintendo Has "No Plans To Ditch Physical" Despite What Other Platforms Are Doing Published Oct 12, 2026, 5:24 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Sign in to your TheGamer account PlayStation’s decision to stop putting games on discs from 2028 has those who buy physical on other platforms worried that they might follow in the gaming giant’s footsteps. If you buy physical games on Nintendo, you have nothing to worry about, for now, as one of the studio’s VPs has confirmed its stance on physical releases. Nintendo Has No Plans To Stop Releasing Physical Games Nintendo Speaking to Coelho (thanks, Nintendo Everything), Bill van Zyll, Nintendo’s VP and general manager in Latin America, confirmed the good news. “We’re barely just over a year into Nintendo Switch 2. It’s got both digital and physical, that capability. There’s no plans to ditch physical,” Zyll said. “We know how much the fans like it as well, so our position has been to be agnostic.” Zyll also noted that Nintendo has been agnostic for a while, as in the company has never really followed trends and leaned into what competing consoles are doing. One of the main reasons Nintendo is as successful as it is today is because, since the Wii - arguably even earlier than that - it has effectively ignored what PlayStation and Xbox are doing and done its own thing. Zyll also noted that Nintendo “go off what the consumer prefers”, something that has been evident across multiple console generations while others, particularly more recently, have opted to chase trends and fallen into money pits, the latest example being live service. Nintendo has neglected to try and find the next Fortnite, because there’s no such thing. PlayStation, on the other hand, openly admitted to its commitment to creating a dozen live service games. Some, like Concord, have failed spectacularly, while others, including The Last of Us online, will never see the light of day. Game-Key Cards Don't Seem So Bad After All Nintendo PlayStation’s commitment to ending disc production has actually taken the heat off Nintendo during this still-young Switch 2 era. Several Switch 2 games are game-key cards. Key cards are simply, as the name suggests, keys you insert into a console that trigger a download. The game itself isn’t on the card at all. Now that PlayStation is moving towards a future where physical games are just a code in a box and don’t have anything you need to put into a console whatsoever, game-key cards suddenly feel like the far lesser of two evils. PlayStation could take a leaf out of Nintendo’s book and do the same with discs, but based on how little it has done in the wake of the ongoing backlash, it doesn’t seem like it plans on backing down or reversing course in any way whatsoever. Brand Nintendo Original Release Date June 5, 2025 Original MSRP (USD) $449.99 Operating System Proprietary Resolution 1080p (handheld) / 4K (docked) HDR Support Yes