Not sure there is a correlation here. like you mentioned 360 arcade had no memory, Wii U came with 8GB flash storage.
To put your fears to rest, the 3DS came with a 2GB SD card at launch and has games nearly twice that size.
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LPVG: Nintendo Switch to support Micro SD cards up to 128GB.
- Thread starter BY2K
- Start date
Not sure there is a correlation here. like you mentioned 360 arcade had no memory, Wii U came with 8GB flash storage.
To put your fears to rest, the 3DS came with a 2GB SD card at launch and has games nearly twice that size.
Here is a graphic with info about the different formats of SD cards. This is from the SD Association at WWW.SDCARD.ORG.
Stilton Disco
Member
And SSD's piss on both from a great height, but since the overwhelming majority of people won't have the fastest option available, instead opting for the cheapest, what storage can do is usually irrelevant.
Switch games will have to be developed with those restrictions in mind and make compromises to accommodate.
Plus, even for those of us that know what to buy will have to pay over the odds for it, and we've no guarantee the Switch will even support higher end cards properly.
SDcards are just not idea storage for games. Even most smartphone games won't run from them.
Well that's a miserable amount of space.
And flash cards are just lightning quick, devoid of loading times, right? No matter how much some of you people like to call those things cartridges, they're not.
And flash cards are just lightning quick, devoid of loading times, right? No matter how much some of you people like to call those things cartridges, they're not.
They don't need big third party support since people won't have space for games anyway
Seriously, at least add two slots.
Nah its just the same as the 3DS's limit probably as in, there is no limit. They just use the highest stable number and readily available size.
I wouldn't put much stock in it, 3DS is limited to 32GB, but my 64GB works fine and my friend has a 128GB in his.
oh I see.
that's not bad then. I mean, anyone who wants to go digital only is super fucked, but you should be ok with physical releases.
some of the patches from third parties are pretty huge these days... but the switch won't have third party support so it's all good
FunkyDealer
Banned
Would have been nice if it had two slots for Micro SD cards. To make expanding and moving storage easier. It shouldn't take up too much space on such a large device.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I'm sure it will. I'll bet anything on it.
oh I see.
that's not bad then. I mean, anyone who wants to go digital only is super fucked, but you should be ok with physical releases.
some of the patches from third parties are pretty huge these days... but the switch won't have third party support so it's all good
I know you are joking, but honestly the nature of the NS means that it will have a large library thanks to Nintendo's Handheld support, also Bethesda never released a game for Nintendo in the past, so that is certainly different. I also expect this thing to sell closer to Nintendo's handheld numbers than console numbers considering this will kill the 3DS, and gamefreak tweeted out the preview trailer/pokemon company confirmed they are bringing pokemon to NS.
theindieboy
Member
Seriously 128gb ouch if dealing with AAA none nintendo games they clearly don't want to push digital games. The more i hear the less excited, damn have a 32gb card on vita and it's a pain in the arse but if getting games like skyrim they are going to be way bigger than vita games, no where near enough at 128!
SDXC is 2TB, Nintendo is probably marketing 128GB capacity because the cards come in under $40. (note there are no 2TB cards, my point is that the reader would read a 2TB card if it existed.)
Schnozberry
Member
Depends on what tools Nintendo has on offer for lot checking and compression. Encouraging the use of compressed audio and video, and pushing for reduced patch sizes will help immensely. It's crazy how much the PC mindset has moved over to consoles.
DrROBschiz
Member
Keep educating guys
128GB is NOT the limit. Not even close and im not sure why they are fucking up this messaging once again
3DS limit is NOT 32GB btw... for those of you STILL in the dark
128GB is NOT the limit. Not even close and im not sure why they are fucking up this messaging once again
3DS limit is NOT 32GB btw... for those of you STILL in the dark
You don't that for sure, don't you? And we won't know until the Switch will be in our hands and we'll try it. Or some reviewer can try it earlier.
It's a possibility, but don't state it like it's a fact.
DrROBschiz
Member
No it IS a fact
Unless Nintendo is going to software lock their SDXC reader than YES it is fact
I submit my 3DS as proof and precedent
I don't think you know what a fact is, then. What you do is provide an educated speculation, but it's far from being a fact.
Using 3ds as a proof has no weight.
"Wii uses SD cards, 3ds uses SD cards thus Wii U uses SD cards for storage. "
It doesn't work like that.
You don't know yet what kind of proprietary file system Nintendo uses for the micro-SD cards.
DrROBschiz
Member
IF Switch has an SDXC reader....
Then thats really it
Because 3DS had a SDHC reader... CORRECTION SDXC Cards worked in 3DS when formatted to FAT 32
Maybe to keep things simple for the public and they likely figured no one needed more than 32GB on the 3DS or WiiU
The simple FACT is an SDXC reader can read MORE than 128GB
Dark Cloud
Member
Yet, you're using Laura like she's some "fact" machine.
Hopefully they'll use a MicroSD/UFS combo slot, although I won't hold my breath. The option of SKUs with higher capacity internal memory would be nice too.
Smartphone games not running off SD cards has nothing to do with their performance and everything to do with Android's messy handling of SD storage.
Smartphone games not running off SD cards has nothing to do with their performance and everything to do with Android's messy handling of SD storage.
jabberwocker
Banned
Either way it's any expensive option if you were compare to some games. Are games going to be on huge cards with extra room to write? Sounds costly.
So a SDXC reader works independently of the operating system and the file system?
What are you talking about? We're in a thread discussing this information. Call it rumour, whatever. But this is the topic here. Should I not discuss about the subject of the thread or what?
DrROBschiz
Member
And back to the 3DS/WiiU and why SDXC cards work when formatted
They didnt have a filesystem restriction then
So we are to assume they are gonna lock down their SDXC reader now?
There likely isn't one, the 3DS also has a "limit" in that they just have an advisable maxima but you can load it with whatever.
DrROBschiz
Member
Whats truly bizarre this time around though
SDHC was indeed limited to 32GB but SDXC cards ended up being readable in just about and SDHC reader when properly formatted (there was one minor hitch that individual files in fat32 format over 4GB would have issues)
However if Switch has SDXC out of the box... why are they saying its a 128 limit?
Ignorance?
SDHC was indeed limited to 32GB but SDXC cards ended up being readable in just about and SDHC reader when properly formatted (there was one minor hitch that individual files in fat32 format over 4GB would have issues)
However if Switch has SDXC out of the box... why are they saying its a 128 limit?
Ignorance?
Storm Chamber
Banned
But do we even know how big the games will be?
Wii U USB drives use a proprietary file system.
Even so, I don't assume it will be locked or not. I just said that you shouldn't go around and state it is a fact until it's proved to be so. Say it's most likely or whatever, but it's not a fact.
[exaggeration to prove a point] What if people will buy micro-SD cards bigger than 128GB based on your "it is a FACT" and they won't work? Will you refund them? [/exaggeration]
I doubt it cause you would not use the hard drive when not docked. The sd card would be in the tablet already.
DrROBschiz
Member
Naw man
I imagine the reason is that 128GB are the highest widely available product at the moment with 256GB being very fresh and expensive
No point in talking about 512 to their current intended audience
I would be very surprised if an SDXC card above 128 doesnt work. Im pretty confident about that
hoping for some buffer memory to be used for running games, to mitigate the potentially slow load times from slower SD cards. Otherwise games will have to be designed to run at the slowest common denominator.
How fast are people expecting game cards to be? Were 3DS cards faster than SD or about the same?
How fast are people expecting game cards to be? Were 3DS cards faster than SD or about the same?
DrROBschiz
Member
They started out about the same until sd card speeds blew past them
Omnistalgic
Member
How the heck is this more convenient than a big HDD?128gb is low but you can buy multiple SD's and use each one for a different genre/publisher.
What is that guy talking about this is an advantage over the other consoles? Am I missing something? Can I get a TB if space on something as small as a SD card today? That's pretty awesome
Well that's the thing.
Some here in these threads speculate the Switch to be able to run near-XB1 level content. Downside is that XB1/PS4 games are fucking HUGE. Some reach 70-80GB.
You can call that 'bad optimization' or 'lazy devs' all you want but that doesn't mean it's not the way the current AAA development process works. Third parties aren't going to spend a ton of resources tailoring their games down to fit Nintendo's lack of storage solutions.
On the other hand, if the Switch really is only modestly more powerful than Wii-U, you can see game sizes maybe more in the vein of what people are used to on Wii-U (max of 20GB or so?) But third-parties are likely not going to bother porting their AAA games down to such a low-spec machine anyway so that's less of an issue.
I'm really curious how they are going to adress the storage situation. It seems to me that digital is really not the way to go for this thing. Just buy a little box for your physical gamecards and save yourself the trouble.
DrROBschiz
Member
MicroHD cards cap out at 256GB with 512 on the way
Uhh 256 is probably the ony one that could feasibly be affordable in 5 months
RevolutionizeTheGame
Neo Member
Today's smartphones support up to 2TB even though there's no cards on the market that go that high. I'd assume by launch Nintendo will have support for 2TB cards as well. On the bright side 128GB is about $30-$40 right now and will only get cheaper in the next few years. The ironic thing is that Sony will sell you Switch storage at 1/5 of Vita's memory cards for the same amount of storage.
Schnozberry
Member
My first suggestion would be to have a dedicated audio chip in the Switch that can handle decompression,and avoid common situations like this:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/132922-Titanfall-Dev-Explains-The-Games-35-GB-of-Uncompressed-Audio
Giving developers licensing to use compressed codecs would help as well.
Edit: Giving users the ability to restrict the languages of the audio they download would be good too, especially for EU players.
jabberwocker
Banned
Localization has to be a thing for this I would imagine.
I was joking about keeping one microSD for each publisher, lol.
I do think having two microSD slots is a good idea though.
Schnozberry
Member
It's rumored to be region free, so I'm not sure how the eShop will be organized.
belteshazzar
Member
I wonder how big the Switch games are going to be. If you can fit a ton of games on a 128 micro sd card that would make me really happy. If they do this and also tie digital games you buy to your Nintendo account instead of the console I might actually go digital for the Switch.
Pancakes R Us
Member
I would hope more storage or a hard drive attached to the dock is possible. If you have a few 25GB games, and you buy digital downloads, it won't fit much at all.