When the Nintendo Switch 2 is officially released next month, Cyberpunk 2077 will become one of the first games to land on the new console.The reason why this game has caused enthusiastic response from Ren players is largely due to its complete physical cassette version. Under the current industry situation where most third-party manufacturers only provide "game key fobs" with inclusion codes, CD Projekt Red insists on fully encapsulating the game body and DLC into the cassette.Jan Rosner, the company's vice president of business development, explained the considerations behind this decision in an exclusive interview with The Game Business recently.

"The physical retail channel of the Nintendo platform is still strong, and physical games will not die in the short term. Especially for players of the Ren family, physical version has special significance. We could have followed the crowd, but is this right? Putting the complete game into a cassette and providing players with a plug-and-play experience is the right choice." Rosner emphasized, "Don't underestimate the value of the physical version. It will not disappear, and Nintendo players especially value physical versions that are carefully crafted."

In April this year, although the developer interview video released by Nintendo did not directly mention the physical version, the comment section has been flooded with related discussions.Even if physical cassettes can significantly increase sales, players of Ren are obviously ready to vote with their wallets - as the release date of Switch2 on June 5 approaches, this choice of game carrier will usher in market testing.

In the development of the past two generations of consoles, the existence of physical games has always been the focus of the industry.More and more publishers are turning to "semi-physical" CDs that require mandatory, causing strong dissatisfaction among physical collection enthusiasts.The reality is that there are still a large number of players who enjoy classic games through cassettes and CDs, and they are worried that games that rely on the Internet will lose their long-term playability.

CD Projekt Red's decision is obviously based on in-depth research: Nintendo players do have special emotions about physical games.In the past eight years, it has become the norm for Switch players to collect physical cassettes on a large scale.It is not difficult to understand these players' position to resist the "game key fob".