NIS president says they don't see a sales difference between other platform physical releases & Game-Key Cards

In our interview with Kenzo Saruhashi, president and CEO of Nippon Ichi Software, Josh brought up the topic of Game-Key Cards for Switch 2 physical releases and whether they see a noticeable impact on sales performance for games offered on a Game-Key Card.

In response to Josh in our interview which you can read in full here, NIS president said the following:

RPG Site: Let’s switch gears to the Nintendo Switch 2. One of the new physical game initiatives Nintendo introduced with the Switch 2 is game key cards. There has been a response from Switch 2 players that say game key cards take away the feeling of ownership, because a game’s data is not stored in a game key card.

Do you see a noticeable impact on the sales performance of Switch 2 game software that is offered on game key cards? Do other platforms’ physical media offerings that do allow for all of a game’s data to be stored on them see increased sales in comparison to game software offered on game key cards?

Kenzo Saruhashi: Currently, we don’t see a difference in the sales between them.

NIS' president also commented on Sony's plans to stop producing physical discs for new titles coming to PlayStation platforms in 2028. You can read it below from our interview:

RPG Site: Sony released a major statement several months ago that starting in 2028, they will no longer be producing physical discs for new titles coming to PlayStation platforms.

How do you foresee this affecting NIS, and what steps are you taking now to prepare for it?

Kenzo Saruhashi: In terms of Sony stopping disc production, we’re on the same page as everyone else. Sony hasn’t told us their long-term intentions or plans. We don’t know if disc sales are just going to go completely away or not.

As you know, we make a lot of limited editions. We like to add a lot of goodies in them, especially NIS America. 

As for the future and what’s going to happen, we’re paying very close attention to the market reaction and we don’t plan to stop.

The next major NIS release seeing a global launch on consoles is Village in the Shade. It launches on October 27 for PS5, Switch 2, Switch, and PC (Steam) in the West.