The game key cards allow for sale a game in physical format, but with a low cost card that hides a key and not the data of the title itself, which must be downloaded and installed in the UFS storage of Switch 2 or a compatible MicroSD Express MicroSD card. Bantin says that when in Ubisoft they talked about whether to use a standard card or a game card with Star Wars Outlaws, the discussion was not on the cost of each option, but about the speed of Nintendo Switch 2 cards, which is lower than internal storage or microSD Express MicroSD cards.
Switch 2 cards are faster than Switch, but do not reach the speed of their own internal storage of about 1,450 MB/s or the 985 MB/s that MicroSD Express cards can theoretically offer. Because switch 2 cards cannot transfer data as fast as internal storage, which is a problem for the snowdrop engine due to the need to transmit data at high speed, the decision was made to launch Star Wars Outlaws in a key card. This is the only way to ensure that everyone will execute the game from internal storage.
«[…] Switch 2 cards simply do not offer the performance we need for the quality objective we had marked, «says Rob Bantin.» I do not remember that the cost of the cards has been put on the table at any time, probably because it was not irrelevant. «The developer adds that if Star Wars Outlaws developed for Switch 2 from scratch, it could have been different, but the title is based on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles.
The Star Wars Outlaws version for Switch 2 is already on sale and according to the first impressions the game's performance is very good. A reality that contrasts with some information appeared during the Gamescom 2025 that spoke of poor performance. Using a game key for a performance issue can be valid for Star Wars outlaws, but it is not a valid reason for other much less demanding games that in no case depend on the speed of data transmission.