Anti trade-in?
Remember Project 10 Dollar/online passes, circa 2010?
They were a draconianconcept primarily adopted by EA, Sony, and WB (among others) that would provide a content code (or strip something crucial out to sell as a bonus) for new copies. The idea was to fight the used game industry, but thanks to a bunch of people speaking out against it (“many players didn’t respond to the format” is the phrase EAVP of Global CommunicationsJohn Reseburg used in 2013) and the rise of digital sales, it pretty much died.
Well this instance isn’t quite Project 10 Dollar, but it’s giving off the same vibes. To recap, if you buy Final Fantasy X/X-2 on Switch as an Asia-region physical purchase, it’ll contain both games on the same cart with multiple languages. Done. In the west, only X is on the cart: X-2 is a download. Now that the apocalypse is finally here, people are contending that the situation is even worse than we thought.
What Square Enix has seemingly done is tie Final Fantasy Xand X-2together as one download, with the latter serving as what is basically DLC for the former. Meaning, even if you redeem the X-2download code packed into the western edition of the physical version, you still need the game cart to play it. If you trade it in, you can’t boot up the downloaded X-2.
Nintendo has proven that it is possible to not make individual games so co-dependent on Switch. Bayonetta 1was offered as a download in a package deal with Bayonetta 2, and was able to function even without the cart. Nintendo also provided the ability to play the Torna expansion for Xenoblade Chronicles 2as a standalone experience with a physical release.
This is just another reason why you should import X/X-2on Switch and avoid two egregious missteps.
Final Fantasy X-2 [Reddit]