You might even argue that Nintendo is extra more likely to supply longer-term help for Recreation Key Card downloads since backward compatibility seems to be a priority for the Switch hardware line. If we presume that future Swap techniques will stay backward suitable, we will most likely additionally presume that Nintendo will need gamers on new {hardware} to nonetheless have entry to their previous Recreation Key Card purchases (or to have the ability to use Recreation Key Playing cards bought on the secondhand market).

A pile of bodily video games that can by no means require a obtain server to work.

Credit score:
Aurich Lawson

There aren’t any ensures in life, after all, and nothing lasts without end. Nintendo will in the future exit of enterprise, at which level it appears unlikely {that a} Recreation Key Card will be capable to obtain a lot of something. In need of that, Nintendo might endure a monetary illness that makes obtain servers for legacy techniques appear to be an indulgence, or it might come beneath new administration that does not see worth in supporting decades-old purchases made for historic consoles.

As of this writing, although, Nintendo has stored its Wii recreation obtain servers energetic for six,743 days and counting. If the Swap 2 Recreation Key Card servers final as lengthy, which means these playing cards will nonetheless be absolutely practical by way of at the very least October 2043.

I do not know what I can be doing with my life in 2043, however it’s comforting and intensely believable to think about that the “eighty greenback rental” I product of a Swap 2 Recreation Key Card again in 2025 will nonetheless work as meant.

Or, to place it one other means, I feel it is extremely doubtless that I’ll change into “e-waste” lengthy earlier than any Swap 2 Recreation Key Playing cards.