You could even argue that Nintendo is more likely to offer longer-term support for Game Key Card downloads since backward compatibility seems to be a priority for the Switch hardware line. If we presume that future Switch systems will remain backward compatible, we can probably also presume that Nintendo will want players on new hardware to still have access to their old Game Key Card purchases (or to be able to use Game Key Cards purchased on the secondhand market).
A pile of physical games that will never require a download server to work.
Credit:
Aurich Lawson
There are no guarantees in life, of course, and nothing lasts forever. Nintendo will one day go out of business, at which point it seems unlikely that a Game Key Card will be able to download much of anything. Short of that, Nintendo could suffer a financial malady that makes download servers for legacy systems seem like an indulgence, or it could come under new management that doesn’t see value in supporting decades-old purchases made for ancient consoles.
As of this writing, though, Nintendo has kept its Wii game download servers active for 6,743 days and counting. If the Switch 2 Game Key Card servers last as long, that means those cards will still be fully functional through at least October 2043.
I don’t know what I will be doing with my life in 2043, but it’s comforting and extremely plausible to imagine that the “eighty dollar rental” I made of a Switch 2 Game Key Card back in 2025 will still work as intended.
Or, to put it another way, I think it’s highly likely that I will become “e-waste” long before any Switch 2 Game Key Cards.