TL;DR: R-Type Dimensions III is switching from a Game Key Card release to having the full game on the card. Because of this, the physical release MSRP is increasing by €10. They will honor the old price for existing pre-orders.
Initially, the publisher said that this was made possible by the new smaller capacity cartridges that Nintendo just announced. Later, they updated the press release to remove any references to cheaper cartridges and instead said that Nintendo did not announce anything.
“Inin Games later updated its official blog to remove any reference to the “new smaller cartridge sizes” it previously said Nintendo had “announced.” The publisher also backtracked in a social media update, clarifying that “there has been no official announcement or confirmation from Nintendo concerning cartridge storage capacities.””
Oops. This is great news for the physical game collectors. I gave up back in 2020 and have been mostly digital unless its a steal to get a physical version, but I always thought it was awful that it was a dying medium. I miss the instruction books and extras from long ago. On a side note there are a few companies doing custom books for some games which is really cool.
Tbh, I do get why they do instruction booklets and stuff only for collectors editions.
Back in the 90s and before that instruction booklets were actually vitally important. Games just didn’t have the storage size to cram decent tutorials, backstory and artwork into the game itself. The booklets taught you how to play the game and gave you nice images to visualize what the 16 pixels that made up your character were supposed to symbolize.
All that isn’t necessary anymore. In-game tutorials and resources are much better than what you could pack into a booklet (and can be updated, which isn’t possible with the booklet), and hardware advances mean that the games look exactly how they are supposed to look. Artwork in the booklet wouldn’t look any better.
But some people love that kind of stuff, so it makes sense to sell it only to them and save the money and material that would just go into the bin for most buyers.