this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
73 points (95.1% liked)
Nintendo
24742 readers
137 users here now
A community for everything Nintendo. Games, news, discussions, stories etc.
Rules:
- Stay on topic.
- No NSFW content.
- No hate speech or personal attacks.
- No ads / spamming / trolling / self-promotion / low effort posts / memes etc.
- No linking to, or sharing information about, hacks, ROMs or any illegal content. And no piracy talk. (Linking to emulators, or general mention / discussion of emulation topics is fine.)
- No console wars or PC elitism.
- Be a decent human (or a bot, we don't discriminate against bots... except in Point 8).
- All bots must have mod permission prior to implementation and must follow instance-wide rules. For lemmy.world bot rules click here
- Links to Twitter, X, or any alternative version such as Nitter, Xitter, Xcancel, etc. are no longer allowed. This includes any "connected-but-separate" web services such as pbs. twimg. com. The only exception will be screenshots in the event that the news cannot be sourced elsewhere.
Upcoming First Party Games (NA):
Game | Date
|
StarFox [S2] | Jun 25 Rhythm Heaven: Groove | Jul 02 Splatoon Raiders [S2] | Jul 23 Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave [S2] | Sep 17 Nintendo Switch Sports Resort [S2] | Oct 22 The Duskbloods [S2] | 2026 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time [S2] | 2026 Pokémon Winds & Waves [S2] | 2027 Xenoblade Genesis [S2] | 2027
[S2] means Switch 2 only.
Other Gaming Communities
- Games @ lemmy.world
- Gaming @ lemmy.ml
- Games @ sh.itjust.works
- World of JRPG's @ lemmy.zip
- Linux Gaming @ lemmy.ml
- Linux Gaming @ lemmy.world
- Patient Gamer @ lemmy.ml
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What first party game was ever code-in-box?
Depends if you count Pokopia. But Pokemon is in that weird "sort of a Nintendo IP, sort of not" state.
Nintendo was not the publisher of Pokopia in Japan, and Gamefreak is an indie developer. But Nintendo did publish Pokopia worldwide and still chose not to put the game on cart, so not sure where the decision for that rests.
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world said "before the Switch 2 release". And while I don't like Game Key Cards, they are just barely above code-in-box because you can still trade/resell them.
To my understanding, some games just don’t work with SD cards because they need the faster loading off of the SSD. Also games over 64gb don’t fit on the cards.
People really really latched onto the key card narrative despite it all being 3rd party publishers making use of it. The lone exception as far as I know is Pokopia, which as a Pokémon title comes with all the usual fucky bullshit that comes along with TPC and GameFreaks... but it was published in the west by Nintendo themselves.
It may be the only one, but people have convinced themselves that it's everything and no amount of facts will sway them otherwise.
And the fact is, the vast majority of game key cards are games that are on PC as well, so preservation isn't much of an issue. Pokopia is a notable exception.
It's a special case, but the Switch 2 Mario Kart launch bundle came preloaded with Mario Kart World digital. All previous versions of Nintendo consoles with a bundle came with physical media.
But you could absolutely purchase a non bundle Switch 2 and a physical Mario Kart World (for $20 more).
And you're right that so far every first party game has had both a physical release and a digital release.
Not true. If anything I'm trying to remember the last one that came with the physical game. The MK8 Wii U bundle was digital. As were the ALBW 3DS bundles. There's probably a few though, between the 2/3DS and Switch there have been quite a few collectors' editions. Some with game, some without.
Adding to the list of bundles, my new 3ds (still annoyed at that name) was bundled with animal crossing and it was digital as well
Oh interesting! So there must have been different bundles because my Wii U Mario Kart bundle came with a physical copy of the game and a special red Mario controller + plastic wheel.
But looking online I do see the digital only bundle existed.
My Switch 1 didn't come with anything bundled and I brought a physical copy of Breath of the Wild.
But when I bought my Switch 2 I saw Mario Kart was digital and Legends ZA was digital, so I assumed this was a new change over starting with this generation.
It's probably a regional difference. There might not have been an official Nintendo Eshop in your region, so you had physical editions bundled, now that there is, the bundle is digital
I'm in the US, so they definitely have an Eshop and always have.
I'm sure it's just different bundles over the lifetime of the system.
There's been a LOT of bundles. Either way, we both learned something today. I'd call that a win.
This is why I love Lemmy lmao