Nintendo has announced plans for the Switch 2 to mirror its predecessor's lifespan, about six to seven years. No one anticipated Sony's decision to phase out game discs, so Nintendo's future remains uncertain, even though the company pledged to continue physical releases. With the Switch 2 launching just last year, we can at least look forward to another six good years of physical media.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Zhiye Liu News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
Jame5 That is disingenuous at best. They already have shown that they pay lip service to physical games at best. Shipping physical cartridges with game license keys only on them, and no actual game content. I personally am a BIG fan of purchasing games on physical media, and all my switch/switch2 games are on cartridge. But having to research "is this game actually on the cartridge, or is this cartridge the equivalent of a completely empty filesystem with one file called 'license.txt' on it?" before every single purchase is already wearing on my nerves. Reply
usertests They've had the key card controversy, although I heard that all the first-party games include the data. The physical is merely a bunch of NAND, that could suffer from bit rot if left alone for a number of years. Obviously past carts have had problems with things like dead save batteries. Physical doesn't matter that much from a technical perspective. What it should do is allow cheap resale of the games. That's the main benefit. Nintendo has announced plans for the Switch 2 to mirror its predecessor's lifespan, about six to seven years. No one anticipated Sony's decision to phase out game discs, so Nintendo's future remains uncertain, even though the company pledged to continue physical releases. With the Switch 2 launching just last year, we can at least look forward to another six good years of physical media. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida argues that the PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 lifespans should be increased as long as possible: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/10/former-sony-exec-shuhei-yoshida-thinks-nintendo-is-going-to-do-pretty-well-with-switch-2-for-many-years-to-come Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/nintendo/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/nintendo/nintendo-stands-by-physical-games-as-sony-embraces-a-disc-less-future-theres-no-plans-to-ditch-physical-we-know-how-much-the-fans-like-it-as-well-so-our-position-has-been-to-be-agnostic-says-a-nintendo-exec#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Contain the Chaos: ‘CONTROL Resonant’ Launches on GeForce NOW
- Jev-like decision models are flooding the AI market, after researcher claims TypeSafe copied their research
- AMD debuts Helion reference design for agentic AI servers with up to 32,768 Zen 6 ‘Venice’ cores
- Intel to phase out SGX after Xeon Diamond Rapids in favor of TDX
- Developer uses Claude to enable Xbox Cloud Gaming on jailbroken PS5s
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.