Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have announced that the eagerly awaited life-sim game Pokemon Pokopia will be released on 5th March. Interestingly, this game will be a Game-Key Card release according to the recent video explaining about Game-Key Cards. This makes Pokemon Pokopia the first Nintendo published game to go down this route. A reason wasn’t given for the decision, but it is bound to cause plenty of discourse between fans.
Pokemon Pokopia seems to be a Game-Key Card release and is due early March
Of course the first Nintendo-published game to use a key card had to be a Pokemon game. Just comical.
Pokémon is BARELY Nintendo-published, contrary to what all these articles are saying. The Pokémon Company publishes them entirely on their own in Japan (their home country), and in the west it’s a joint effort between Nintendo and TPC. Even third party games like Triangle Strategy are more “Nintendo published” than Pokémon, because at least NOA/NOE handled the publishing entirely own their own.
A shame. I hate those game key cards as they are taking out most of what would have been true physical releases . Haven’t bought one yet and it will be rare if i do end up buying. It will have to be heavily discounted and I’ll sell it right after I finish the game. Won’t be keepers for me.
Yeah it’s pretty much over for physical media…
Even though they said they planned to keep first party games as full physical releases? They went back on that promise pretty quick.
Very, very disappointing. Nintendo has been making some poor decisions with the Switch 2.
This decision was almost certainly made by the Pokémon company and not Nintendo. Nintendo doesn’t even publish the games in Japan, and in the west it is a joint effort between TPC and Nintendo. People overestimate how much control Nintendo has over Pokémon.
Yeah, but still, Nintendo owns ~1/3 of TPC, right? Still seems like bad PR to me
Nowadays this is basically the same as “real” physical games. The last physical games were on N64. 🤷♂️
It’s really not. What kind of fairytale land do you live in where this is true? Psychos like you who constantly try to reclassify what a “real” physical game is are doing some of the most idiotic mental gymnastics possible. Absolute imbecile.
Pokémon isn’t 1st Party. If it was, we wouldn’t have such extreme quality issues with the franchise.
Isn’t Pokopia the one that’s being made by a third party company? If so, maybe it doesn’t enter the scope of “all physical” of Nintendo titles. By the way, Pokémon isn’t a true 1st party, since it’s owned jointly by Nintendo, TPC and GF.
Either way, it’s high time for people to understand the fundamental truth: physical media is a dying market. Games being sold in boxes with only a digital code isn’t anything new. Limited Run is forming a monopoly in physical media precisely because few care today about the games being physical.
inb4 “I like to own my games”: you don’t actually own anything. Streaming became tolerated more than anything and companies can strike channels be it because of content or even simpler things like a soundtrack (why do you think people always mute Directs at the moment a Just Dance game gets showcased?).
If Nintendo isn’t publishing, maybe this will make sense. If they are, then no, none of these counter arguments make any sense. It would ultimately be at their discretion how it’s distributed.
Y’all keep moving the goal post on what a physical release is and what “owning” your game means. Keep doing that. Contribute to making the industry worse. I’ll not be supporting it, nor will many other people. But these younger gens don’t give a shit, and that’s why this so easily gets by.
Of course not one person looks at it from any other perspective than “I want full physical games”. Perhaps the main reason isn’t just a greedy publisher, especially as they literally just released Pokémon Legends Z-A on a full cartridge, but is due to the nature of the game. This is likely to have many large updates over it’s lifespan, depending on it’s popularity of course, and probably has one on day one meaning the full physical cartridge would be missing the bulk of the game. I get that people want physical games, I predominantly buy physical, but it really is getting tiresome listening to/reading the whining where no one looks at all possible angles. You have to live in the real world and accept that all physical media is a thing of the past, enjoy what you get and stop freaking out every time theres a game that isn’t. As I’ve said before, you are all howling at the moon.
Let’s see people reactions when the next Sony’s handheld will exclusively use digital. Will be interesting.
Yeah, the Game Key Card is the issue, not the $70 price for this game.
I wasn’t going to buy this one as it is, but the game key card would have put a nail in the coffin if I was thinking about it.
Big surprise, it’s always the most consumer unfriendly publishers known for being cheap and lazy that are using these. EA, Activision, modern Konami, Square-Anus, Ubisoft and now the Pokemon Company. I’m not surprised in the slightest the company in charge of the most popular IP in the world, would cheap out like this on manufacturing.
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