Sonic Racing: Crossworlds is delivered on a Game-Key Card for Switch 2

It's another one of those physical copies that doesn't actually include the game, but the right to download it.

One of the big talking points after the Switch 2 presentation in April was the so-called Game-Key Card. Physical games that weren't really games at all, but rather just a kind of key that lets you download the game in question.

Many people who collect physical games dream of keeping their library and want to be able to play them even if the servers eventually are closed, and furthermore prefer to keep the original games as it is not uncommon for something to be patched away forever after controversy. Game-Key Cards make both of these impossible and in many ways it's the worst of the two worlds as you get the disadvantages of both digital and physical games (needing to download, cartridges can be lost and needing to swap between games). The only real advantage is that you can resell your games after you've got tired of them.

This has made some people avoid titles that are on so-called Game-Key Card to instead reward those that actually include the entire game on the cassette (which is alarmingly few major titles). And unfortunately we now have bad news regarding Sonic Racing: Crossworlds as Wario64 points out via Bluesky that Sega's support says that the physical version for Switch 2 is on a Game-Key Card.

Support of this kind has been wrong before, but we advise you not to get your hopes up. How do you feel about buying physical games for Switch 2, do you care if the game is on the cartridge or not?