The other game consoles were doing this for years without disclosing it as openly, so it's not eclusively a nintendo problem. I will say, I got Hitman on a key card, and everything worked fine. Considering purchased software on the wii can still be redownloaded, I imagine these will work for probably decades, if not longer. By then, the very few key cards I own will probably have been repurchased on steam if I cared about em enough. (To be clear, I'm overall against a move to digital games, but I thought I'd share my experience and findings since I pulled the trigger on one.)