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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - How do you feel about the Switch using cartridges?

I love the switch back to cartidges. They are more reliable, have less loading times, can store data and save sytem space since they're tiny.
I also expect huge filesizes for games not to be much of a problem since with mass production prizes arre going to go down further.



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If it reduces load times and prices don't go up I am fine with it. Curious how large they are in size.



I remember somewhere I did a quick and dirty analysis on the difference using store bought BR-RW vs SD Flashcards and the difference is less then $1US. And considering that Nintendo usually recommends a certain size to help bring the cost down by buying in bulk. My guess is they will either go with the 64GB or the 128GB sizes for games with maybe a little extra for i/o.

The two downside to carts of old was the battery back up which isn't used anymore since they can write to the flash memory now, and the cost which ever since smart phones, digital camera, etc became a consumer item, the price of manufacturing flash has plummeted.

So it is a pretty solid move by Nintendo for this.



Augen said:
If it reduces load times and prices don't go up I am fine with it. Curious how large they are in size.

Possibly around 32GB or something that was the rumoured amount, Skyrim Remastered is proabably around the 20GB mark.



trunkswd said:
I'm 100% digital at this point, so I hope it has enough storage to be able to download games.

Don't bank it I'm sure it'll support external storage like the Wii U does but I'd be surprised if it has a lrage internal storage.



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Carts literally have no negative side to a consumer. How could anyone see this as something other than awesome?



trunkswd said:
I'm 100% digital at this point, so I hope it has enough storage to be able to download games.

Judging for the size probally not right out of the box. I'm guessing it will suport SD cards for exapanded storage so I would hope they will allow for the bigger cards. Plus if you don't plan on using the mobile it will probally support a external HD.



The game cartridges could be heavily compressed so still loading times as the game uncompresses to main memory. Cartridges are still more expensive to manufacture and will probably be 32 and 64 gigabit so 4 and 8 gigabytes so skyrim for example might need some compression especially if it includes all the dlc that was originally separate in the original version. There using Macronix for their cartridges.

Looking around it feels like nothing has been learned from wii and wii u with many people predicting an ultra powerful portable with huge capacity cartridges that can run the same games and at the same quality as ps4 and xbox one. It feels like we are going down the same path of hype to reality which often takes 2-3 years..



I don't care personally since I'm digital, but I still think it's going to dissuade 3rd parties immensely.



superchunk said:
Carts literally have no negative side to a consumer. How could anyone see this as something other than awesome?

The only downside I can think of is if it uses carts then it won't use discs and a 4k bluray people in addition to the game system would be a nice selling point in the entire package but I guess something like that would be too cutting edge for Nintendo. lol