Earlier this year, the team at CD Projekt Red announced that Cyberpunk 2077 would be a Switch 2 launch title. Not only that, the studio was going to offer those interested a physical game cartridge to purchase, with the actual game on it.
This decision put CD Projekt in the relative minority, as many other third party studios were instead favouring ‘key cards’ for their own Switch 2 releases. These key cards don’t actually contain game data, and instead trigger a download from the Nintendo eShop when they are popped into the device.
And, this move has paid off. Last night, CDPR released its latest financial results and it turns out that the Switch 2 community really does like its physical media. Of Cyberpunk 2077’s Switch 2 sales in June, over 75 percent were physical.
As you can see in the image below, only 24.6 percent of the games Switch 2 sales were digital.
While we don’t have sales figures for Cyberpunk 2077, back in June it was reported CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077 was the “best-selling third-party game during the launch of Switch 2”, and did “reasonable numbers” on Nintendo’s latest console.
Prior to its Switch 2 debut, CD Projekt’s VP of business development Jan Rosner said having Cyberpunk 2077 as a “cartridge with a plug and play experience” on Switch 2 was “the right thing to do”. At this time, the studio exec noted that physical games remain vital to Nintendo’s player base, and developers should not “underestimate” this.
CDPR isn’t the only studio to buck the third-party ‘key cards’ trend. Earlier this year, Sega announced Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds’ release will have the full game on the Switch 2 card.
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