[1] https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/...
Coupled with those confusing cartridges, Nintendo sells cards that could be redeemed for a copy of a game. They're shaped like credit cards, and I always thought they made for horrible gifts. They just don't look good as a gift. These cartridges solve that problem.
This is a clean interface in terms of the software and the sales experience, is as cheap as possible for the devs, and preserves the resale value (so long as Nintendo keeps their store open). This, my friends, is the future of physical games.
If I were Microsoft or Sony, I would pay attention to the reception of these cards. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony's next console has a cheap card reader to allow physical copies with a similar system.
Modern games often require a day one patch. Functionally it's not much different; you need to download a bunch of stuff to play the game on the disc. There have been a few instances where the publisher didn't even ship anything playable on the disc.
A physical ticket of a digital game makes sense in a different way than a disc. Complaints about day one patches would subside.
The second part is the cost. Those disc drives are getting more and more expensive, and less and less used. Every game on current consoles installs from the disc on the drive and does nothing else but validate the disc afterward. Why spend so much on an old technology that isn't used efficiently? Sony and Microsoft should look to add physical keycards to their next console to validate ownership.