In a promising reversal for game key card haters everywhere, R-Type Dimensions 3 publisher Inin Games has announced it will be able to support a physical release on Switch 2 that contains the entire game on the cartridge. How was it able to manage this feat? It said this was all thanks to Nintendo introducing additional SD card sizes for Switch 2, before later revoking all such claims.
“We’re happy to share a positive update regarding the Nintendo Switch 2 version of R-Type Dimensions 3,” the company announced on Friday. “There is no better timing: Two days ago Nintendo announced two new smaller cartridge sizes for Nintendo Switch 2. This allows us to recalculate production in a way that in a way that wasn’t possible before.”
As a result, it said it would move forward with offering a physical version of the game on Switch 2 that wasn’t a game key card. The only difference is that the physical version will cost $10 more than the digital version to account for the production costs. This is good news, and essentially what every diehard fan and enthusiast collector has been begging Nintendo and its Switch 2 development partners to do from the start.
ININ Games retracts their statement about the new smaller Switch 2 carts.
“There has been no official announcement or confirmation from Nintendo concerning cartridge storage capacities. Any references to specific storage sizes should not be interpreted as official information… pic.twitter.com/V9yeCHynVR
— Wario64 (@Wario64) December 19, 2025
But apparently Inin Games wasn’t supposed to reveal that this was all due to new cartridge sizes from Nintendo. The company deleted its original statement and followed up with a bizarre new one. “There has been no official announcement or confirmation from Nintendo concerning cartridge storage capacities,” the company corrected itself.
It continued, “Any references to specific storage sizes should not be interpreted as official information from Nintendo. At this time, we can only confirm that our upcoming release R-Type Dimensions III will be on a physical cartridge. No further technical details regarding cartridge specifications have been officially confirmed.” Mmhmm. Sure.
The good news is that it sounds like other publishers may be able to take advantage of this new development moving forward, though some may still opt to do game key cards for performance reasons (running a game off an installation vs. a cartridge can improve loading times) or because of the cost savings. Up until now, the only Switch 2 cartridges available to developers were 64GB ones.
Games that were too big, like Final Fantasy VII Remake, had to go the game key card route as a result. But it also meant that most small games found paying for the unneeded extra space prohibitively expensive. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles and a ton of other games were only released on Switch 2 as game key cards as a result. Hopefully, Square Enix and others follow the example now set by R-Type Dimensions 3.
