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It’s to prevent warez rips as well, though. Performance of the SD card can be easily worked around; blocking the non-preservation segment community that just wa

It’s to prevent warez rips as well, though. Performance of the SD card can be easily worked around; blocking the non-preservation segment community that just wants to download and play Switch games without paying for them — the majority of which don’t care about historical preservation or speedrunning — is made much easier by simply not loading new games from SD cards at all.

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jsheard 2y ago
If stopping piracy was the main motivation for this change then all games would ship on GameKey carts, but they are still offering real carts to publishers who are willing to pay extra for the flash. It's rare for physical media to be the weak link in console DRM nowadays, when piracy does happen it's nearly always enabled by a full system jailbreak at which point you can just as easily pirate digital games.
- altairprime 2y ago
  It’s not all or nothing. They made ripping of the most valuable games more difficult in exchange for lower prices for publishers, a win-win scenario for their platform, and those few who will insist on having a no-download experience can pay extra to do so. Obviously platform compromises will continue to make ripping possible, but this isn’t about all or nothing prevention, it’s about ratcheting up the difficulty level.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  It's up to the publisher how much DRM they want. Just as publishers choose whether or not their game on Steam uses DRM, publishers for Switch 2 decide whether their game will use GameKey or not.
autoexec 2y ago
> It’s to prevent warez rips as well, though. There's basically no chance that this scheme will prevent piracy. Once again the pirates will have the superior product and paying customers will be screwed over.
delfinom 2y ago
Not to mention there is an alternative to SD cards, which is what modern mirrorless cameras have been moving to. CFexpress cards. Basically M2 nvme cards in a external pluggable form factor.

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jsheard 2y ago

If stopping piracy was the main motivation for this change then all games would ship on GameKey carts, but they are still offering real carts to publishers who are willing to pay extra for the flash. It's rare for physical media to be the weak link in console DRM nowadays, when piracy does happen it's nearly always enabled by a full system jailbreak at which point you can just as easily pirate digital games.

altairprime 2y ago
It’s not all or nothing. They made ripping of the most valuable games more difficult in exchange for lower prices for publishers, a win-win scenario for their platform, and those few who will insist on having a no-download experience can pay extra to do so. Obviously platform compromises will continue to make ripping possible, but this isn’t about all or nothing prevention, it’s about ratcheting up the difficulty level.
Ferret7446 2y ago
It's up to the publisher how much DRM they want. Just as publishers choose whether or not their game on Steam uses DRM, publishers for Switch 2 decide whether their game will use GameKey or not.

autoexec 2y ago

> It’s to prevent warez rips as well, though. There's basically no chance that this scheme will prevent piracy. Once again the pirates will have the superior product and paying customers will be screwed over.

delfinom 2y ago

Not to mention there is an alternative to SD cards, which is what modern mirrorless cameras have been moving to. CFexpress cards. Basically M2 nvme cards in a external pluggable form factor.