Nintendo will break its only rule on Nintendo Switch 2: Pokopia will be released as a Game Key Card
It's been a really strange week in Nintendo's fan communications. On the one hand, we're all looking forward to tomorrow's release of the The Super Mario Galaxy Movie trailer during a special Nintendo Direct, and on the other hand, what happened an hour ago with the announcement of the release date for Pokopia, the Pokémon life simulator co-developed by Creatures Inc. and Game Freak with Koei Tecmo.
The only official information released is that Pokopia will arrive on March 5, 2026. There is no trailer for now, although Serebii confirms that it will arrive on 13 November (Thursday) at 14:00 UTC/15:00 CET. What Nintendo hasn't confirmed in the announcement either, although it has confirmed through official images and a video, is that Pokopia will arrive in physical format with a premium price (8980 yen, the same price as Mario Kart World) and in Game Key Card format.
That's right, Nintendo has decided to break the only rule it had kept on Nintendo Switch 2 until now, which was that the company's releases would always arrive complete on the physical edition cartridge. They've even maintained this with the recent Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, developed by Koei Tecmo but published by Nintendo. The case of Pokopia is just the opposite: developed by Nintendo subsidiaries, but published by Koei Tecmo. And as it appears from the screenshots of the release, the Key Card will only give access to the installation of approximately 10 GB of game files.
The announcement has sparked outrage from even the most ardent supporters of the brand and Pokémon, and always an uncomfortable precedent for Nintendo to embrace future releases of its own, or at least those in which it's involved, as Game Key Cards. Something that won't make the Japanese public very happy either, where the physical games segment continues to take first place in the distribution.
What do you think, will Pokopia be an isolated case within Nintendo's releases, or is it just the first step in a new market strategy?
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