The Last Cartridge

- 155,92 million Nintendo Switch units sold as of March 31, 2026: it is the second best-selling console ever, with 1.528 billion games sold.

- Out of 4,045 physical Switch titles listed in the United States, 28.5% are already worth more than the $60 launch price and 530 titles exceed $100 sealed.

- According to estimates from the The Games Market price observatory, the certified (graded) copy trades at a median +43% compared with the same complete uncertified copy, title by title.

- In the 12 months between August 2025 and July 2026, the graded prices of key titles grew to +45% (Bayonetta 3, European version), while loose copies remained flat or declined.

- Physical releases on Switch have already passed their peak: 575 titles in 2023, 423 in 2025. The catalog is winding down, and the sealed offer is what it is and will no longer grow.

- On Switch 2, a significant portion of third-party games are released on game-key cards: cartridges that do not contain the game. The original Switch remains the last Nintendo console with an entirely complete physical library.

- The mass market physical format in the USA fell from 11.6 billion dollars (2008) to about 1.6 billion (2025), but in the 12 months to May 2026 it grew again (+3%): it is no longer a mass market, it is collector demand.

- In the three scenarios constructed on observed rates, a graded Switch basket rises from index 100 (July 2026) to 109, 133 or 220 by July 2029.

1 · THE DATE THAT CHANGED COLLECTING

There is a date now. On July 1, 2026, with a signed post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony announced that production of physical discs for all new PlayStation games will cease starting in January 2028. The official wording leaves no room for ambiguity: after that threshold, new titles will be available on the PlayStation Store and from retailers only in digital format. The decision does not affect games already released on disc, but it closes the door on the future of physical media on PlayStation.

The stated reason from Sony is a snapshot of an industry: consumer preferences and the entire entertainment sector are shifting from physical media to digital. The company’s numbers confirm it. In the January-March 2026 quarter, 85% of full games sold on PlayStation consoles were digital, a historic record. In parallel, Sony announced the gradual closure of the PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita between the end of 2026 and 2027.

For the collectible video game market, this announcement is a turning point. Analysts immediately quantified what is at stake: the used market for games and consoles, estimated at 7.2 billion dollars (Dataintelo, 2025 data), rests on the ability to resell, lend, and preserve a physical medium. Digital cannot be resold, cannot be lent, cannot be collected. When physical media comes to an end, what already exists becomes, by definition, a closed series.

2 · THE MASS-PRODUCED PHYSICAL ITEM DIES, THE COLLECTIBLE ONE DOESN'T

The decline of physical as a sales channel is not a forecast; it is a historical trend. According to Circana (formerly NPD), physical video game sales in the United States hit their lowest level since tracking began in 1995 in 2025: about 1.6 billion dollars, compared with 11.6 billion at the 2008 peak. A market reduced to a little more than a tenth of its former size in seventeen years.

Within this decline, however, lies the most interesting piece of data in the entire paper. In the 12 months ending in May 2026, according to Circana, the American physical market has started growing again: +3%, the first positive change since 2009. This is not the return of the mass market: it is the emergence of a different kind of demand, one that buys physical media not to play it but to own it. Limited editions, collector's editions, numbered print runs: the physical format that survives is already, in effect, a collector's product. And that is exactly the segment that grading serves.

3 · NINTENDO, THE LAST HOUSE OF THE CARTRIDGE

While Sony was setting the end date for discs, Nintendo publicly stated that physical games remain a core part of its business. The numbers show that this is true: in the fiscal year ended March 2026, digital accounted for 54.6% of Nintendo's software revenue. A figure that is growing slowly (it was 53.5% the year before), far from Sony's 85% of digital units. The two metrics are not directly comparable (Sony measures units sold, Nintendo revenue), but the gap still tells the story of two opposing philosophies: Nintendo users continue to buy boxes and cartridges.

The platform closing out this era is a giant. As of March 31, 2026, Nintendo Switch has sold 155.92 million consoles, second only to PlayStation 2 in history, and 1.528 million software copies. The installed base is spread across three major markets: 57.83 million in the Americas, 39.00 million in Europe, 36.82 million in Japan, with the remaining 22.27 million distributed across other markets. Each of these machines is a potential collector of its own catalog.

Game-key cards are changing the definition of physical games

The crucial point, however, is not how much the Switch sold: it is what comes next. On Switch 2, launched in June 2025, a significant share of third-party titles comes out on game-key cards: cartridges that do not contain the game, only a license key. Once the card is inserted, the console downloads the entire game from Nintendo’s servers; the card must remain inserted to launch it, like a dongle. For the player, it is a compromise; for the collector, it is a change in the nature of the object: the box is there, but the game inside is not.

The community’s reaction was immediate, to the point that Nintendo opened a survey on preferences between physical and digital after the protests. And when the complete alternative exists, the market chooses: for Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2, released on a real cartridge, 75.4% of sales were physical. The demand for real ownership is there, and it is measurable.

Hence the central thesis of this paper: the original Switch is the last Nintendo console whose physical library is fully complete, cartridge by cartridge. After it, Nintendo physical media is partly a box with a download inside. In the history of collecting, the last complete specimen of a species is always the one that is worth the most.

4 · INSIDE THE SWITCH CATALOG: TODAY'S NUMBERS

The Games Market has analyzed the entire price list of the first Nintendo Switch from its price observatory, integrated into the platform, which aggregates the transactions of the main international marketplaces: 4,342 titles listed on the American market, with separate quotations for loose copy (cartridge only), CIB (complete with box and manual), new (sealed), and graded (sealed and certified by a grading company). Three key findings emerge from the data, extracted on July 23, 2026.

The catalog is closing

Annual physical releases have passed their peak: 575 titles in 2023, then 413 in 2024 and 423 in 2025, with the tail end of 2026 already leaning toward Switch 2. For a collector, this is the most important piece of information of all: the supply of physical Switch games is now almost entirely known. From here on out, sealed copies can only decrease, opened one by one, never produced again.

Part of the catalog is already above the launch price

Out of 4,045 titles with sealed prices, 1,151 (28.5%) are already worth more than the typical $60 list price of the Switch era. 530 titles exceed $100, 166 exceed $200, and 29 exceed $500. This is not a niche market: more than a quarter of the catalog has already surpassed its launch price, and one in eight titles has gone past $100. Numbers for a collectible item, not a shelf product.

Certification is the multiplier

For the same title, the value scale is clear: the median catalog price rises from $21.99 for the loose copy to $25.92 for the complete copy, to $33.85 for the sealed copy, up to $40.58 for the sealed and certified copy, almost double that of the loose one. Title by title, the certified copy is valued at a median of +43% compared with the same complete copy; when comparing catalog medians, the gap exceeds 55%. At the high end, the multiplier explodes: the twelve top lots in the catalog all exceed one thousand dollars graded.

A special role is played by limited editions. In the censused Switch catalog there are 338 limited or collector editions, with a median sealed valuation of 93 dollars, more than double the general catalog. Specialized publishers have turned scarcity into an industrial model: Limited Run Games closed the numbered Switch series at 172 titles, each printed only once; Super Rare Games worked with print runs of around 5,000 copies; First Press Games reached 3,000 copies while guaranteeing the absence of reprints. These are the typical starting numbers of future grails.

5 · THREE MARKETS, THREE PACE: USA, EUROPE, JAPAN

The observatory treats the three major regions as separate markets, and the comparison is instructive. The United States has the most mature grading market: for the same title, the American graded listing is often a multiple of the European one (with exceptions: Bayonetta 2 is priced higher in Europe). Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition is listed at $427.84 graded in the U.S. and 55.08 in Europe; Fire Emblem: Three Houses 167.41 versus 72.19; Astral Chain 149.99 versus 65.18.

Japan behaves like a market of its own: for Japanese story-driven titles (with a strong narrative component), local versions consistently command higher prices (sealed Shin Megami Tensei V is worth 95.51 dollars in Japanese version versus 14.15 in American version), reflecting smaller local print runs and very strong domestic demand.

For European collecting, the reading is twofold. On one hand, PAL versions remain the least valued of the three: anyone building a European collection today is buying in the cheapest market. On the other hand, the gap with the USA shows how much ground grading still has to make up in Europe: if the European market were to come even partly closer to American multiples, the growth potential would be entirely in the certified copy. For the European collector, it is the most interesting combination: purchase prices still low and more room ahead.

6 · TWELVE MONTHS THAT POINT THE WAY

The observatory’s historical series make it possible to measure what happened between August 2025 and July 2026, a year spanning the launch of Switch 2 and Sony’s announcement. The pattern is consistent across almost all the key titles observed: loose copies are flat or declining, graded copies are rising. Bayonetta 3 graded grew by 45% in Europe and 23% in the USA, with loose copies flat or negative. Shin Megami Tensei V graded: +33% in Europe and +19% in Japan, while its Japanese loose copy was losing 47%. Fire Emblem: Three Houses grew across all tiers in the USA, with graded at +30%.

The market is saying something very clear: the value is no longer in owning just any copy; it is in owning a perfect, certified copy. It is the same pattern seen on previous consoles after end of life: according to data from specialized collecting sites, on PlayStation 2 titles like Kuon have gone from about 200 dollars to over 1,100 after the end of the disc era, and on GameCube dozens of titles have reached four figures. With one caveat that this paper adopts: appreciation after end of life has always been selective, driven by rarity, condition, and cultural relevance, never uniform across the entire catalog.

Meanwhile, the collecting infrastructure is growing: WATA grading volumes, integrated into PSA since October 2025, increased by about 30% in 2025, and the major auction houses have permanently opened their sessions to sealed modern games, including Switch (Heritage Auctions already sells certified WATA 9.8 first-printing Breath of the Wild lots). For completeness, it should be noted that the retro auction record segment was the subject of journalistic investigations and legal disputes over alleged price-inflation practices between 2021 and 2022: one more reason, not less, to base valuations on verifiable market data and transparent certifications, and that is why this paper uses aggregated market quotes rather than individual auction outliers.

7 · INSIDE THE PSA POPULATION: WHAT THE MARKET IS GRADUALLY APPRECIATING

The proof that Switch certification has already begun is in PSA’s numbers, the world’s largest grading company. PSA’s Population Report dedicated to Nintendo Switch, updated in May 2026, lists 13,443 certified copies spread across 460 titles. That is a lot in absolute terms and very few in relative terms: against 1.528 million Switch copies sold, roughly one in every hundred thousand is certified. The graded Switch market is at the beginning of its curve, with the infrastructure already up and running.

What gets graded first? The icons. On its own, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild accounts for 2,296 certified copies, 17% of the entire population; the first fifteen titles by population are all Nintendo first-party games. Grouping by franchise, Zelda totals 4,024 certifications (30%), the Super Mario family 3,401, Pokémon 2,607: the first five Nintendo families cover 78.6% of everything that has been graded. The collector certifies, first, the platform’s identity-defining pieces, the same ones that drive the prices seen in the previous chapters.

The distribution of grades tells the rest of the story. Modern sealed, well preserved by definition, is concentrated at the high end: 67.2% of copies receive a 9.8 and only 19.7% reach 10. This is where the hierarchy of value is created: when the average condition is excellent, rarity shifts to the perfect grade and the first printings. The textbook case is within the Breath of the Wild population: the first printing (code 105211A) has 138 certified copies versus more than two thousand of the later printings. In mature collecting, that is exactly how the chase pieces are born.

For the market, the picture is twofold. On the one hand, the certification of Switch games is already a well-established phenomenon: 460 cataloged titles, populations ranging from several hundred to over two thousand copies for evergreen titles, with print variants tracked one by one. On the other hand, most of the catalog is still uncovered: 460 certified titles out of more than 4,300 physical releases means that nine out of ten titles do not even have a single copy in a display case. Those who certify today choose the right piece before the population grows, and the population, as a pop report works, can only grow.

8 · 2026-2029: THE FORECAST

What could happen to graded Switch listings over the next three years? No one can sell certainties, but the observed rates make it possible to build three transparent and reproducible scenarios, applied to a basket of key securities with graded listing recorded in July 2026 (index 100).

The catalysts of the next thirty-six months

- January 2028, end of PlayStation discs: the first scheduled extinction of a physical medium on consoles. Every press title will bring it up, and every mention educates the public to the idea that the complete physical format is a closed series.

- March 2027, tenth anniversary of Switch: the symbolic threshold that historically ignites collecting on a platform, with the first audience raised on Switch entering the age of collector incomes.

- The depletion of the Switch retail channel: with the transition to Switch 2, the shelves are being emptied of Switch 1 titles; the last print runs are going out of production and sealed copies are no longer being replenished.

- The maturation of grading outside the USA: certification volumes are growing at double-digit rates, and Europe starts from the lowest multiples: it is the market with the most room for convergence.

Availability: the window is now

The most underestimated signal is in sales volumes: already today 28.4% of the titles in the catalog record fewer than ten recorded transactions, and the median is 25. For most of the catalog, liquidity is already thin: finding a sealed copy in high-grade condition is a problem that gets worse every year, because the stock of sealed items is fixed and is being used up. In auction terms, this is the classic setup of declining supply and growing demand: high-end certified Switch lots, rare in catalogs today, are set to become a regular feature of video game-focused sessions, as happened with NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 over the previous five years.

A necessary clarification, since these are collectible items: the scenarios presented here are market-price projections built on historical data, not promises of returns. The value of a single piece depends on title, print run, condition and grade; appreciation, as the entire history of collecting teaches, is selective. It is precisely for this reason that certification matters: it separates, with a documented and repeatable judgment, the pieces that lead the market from those that follow it.

9 · WHY GRADING IS THE KEY

All the data in this paper converge on one point: in the shift from mass-market physical games to collector’s items, value migrates toward certified copies. Grading does for video games what it has done for comics, trading cards, and coins: it turns an object into a documented asset, with a condition verified by a third party, sealed in a case, and recognizable by any buyer in the world. It is the common language that allows a collector in Tokyo to buy from a seller in Milan without seeing the item.

For the Switch catalog, this transition arrives at the perfect moment: the platform is shutting down, the offering is crystallizing, Sony has put an expiration date on the very concept of physical gaming, and Nintendo has already turned part of its own physical releases into download keys. The 4,342 titles of the Switch generation are the last great fully physical catalog in Nintendo history, distributed across 155.92 million consoles and three continents. Collecting has always rewarded the last complete specimens of a species. This time, for the first time, the market knows it in advance.

The Games Market. Gaming timeless.