What's actually on the cartridge?
Buying a physical game used to mean owning it. On Switch that stopped being true — some cartridges hold the whole game, some hold part of it, some hold a patch-sized fragment, and on Switch 2 some hold nothing at all.
We label every cartridge we know about with one of these statuses. They're ordered by a single question: how much of this game still works when the servers are gone?
- Complete on cartThe whole game is on the chip. No download, no account, no expiry.
- Update availableThe full game is on the chip. A patch exists — amber until someone confirms you can finish without it.
- Partial on cartThe base game is on the chip. Some of what's advertised downloads separately.
- Download requiredThe cartridge alone won't play. A download is mandatory.
- DRMThe game is on the cart, but won't launch without an account or a server.
- Game-key cardNothing is on the card. It's a licence to download.
Two things the status doesn't tell you
How well the game runs is a separate signal. It comes from people who played a cartridge start to finish and reported back, and where we have it, it changes the label — an update that's technically optional but needed to actually finish the game isn't optional in any way that matters.
How the game behaves on Switch 2 is its own axis, shown in blue. It's information, not a judgement: a free performance update and a paid Switch 2 Edition are different products, but neither says anything about what's on your cartridge.
Common questions
Why does a game show "Not checked yet"?
We know the cartridge exists, usually from a release catalogue, but nobody has confirmed what's on it. There are two kinds of gap: sometimes nobody has read the revision number stamped on the chip, sometimes we know the printing but nobody has played it. Both are fixable by one person with the game in hand.
Different copies of the same game show different statuses. Why?
Publishers re-press cartridges. A later printing often contains patches the first one didn't. That's why we track the revision number stamped on the chip, not just the game — same box art, same barcode, different cartridge.
Where does this data come from?
Nintendo Revised — the community cartridge-revisions sheet — plus publisher storefronts, release catalogues, and reports from people who own the games. Every cartridge page shows its sources and the dates they were confirmed.
Can I correct something?
Yes. Every cartridge has a report form. Changes from people go through moderation and always beat automated re-imports, so a correction won't be overwritten the next time a source updates.