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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Observations of a Switch Supporter - Misunderstanding of Product and Services

outlawauron on 13 January 2017
dongo8 said:
outlawauron said:

You realize that the future of gaming is purchasing games digitally through a store? The next console from Sony and MS will likely  be the first to have the majority of its sales from digital and not retail. While it's a big positive that you can buy your own memory cards, but you likely won't even be able to download some games because 32GB is too small (as in, not even a single one because games are way over 50GB these days).

I do understand that digital is quite probably the future, it is more easily tracked, assigned to your account, and usable at any time. There are a lot of benefits to it. What I am saying is Nintendo took this into account and decided that since extra storage is easily accessible and fairly cheap, and the game cards held the games right on them, they could probably get away with keeping the storage low, which I agree with. They really can get away with it for awhile because generally speaking DLC and patches do not happen immediately, and they do not take up 32 gb of storage. Obviously people are going to complain and be against this because they are used to their downloaded games and their gigantic storage which Microsoft and Sony have them accustomed to. I understand this side of things as well, but again they were trying to keep the cost of the system down and more storage would probably have equaled another $50-$100 on the system and then people would have complained even more.

As I said I'm not against it and will probably buy physical for their system. Right now I buy both forms, physical and digital for my XBox One, but am quickly switching to all digital since I need to waste my storage on installations and there is a bit more of a product guarantee since it is downloadable at any time and assigns to my gamertag. I truly believe that people are thinking that they literally NEED a huge harddrive simply because of the current Microsoft and Sony offerings, which I understand, but I do not believe is entirely applicable to the Switch.

DLC and patches do happen within months, if not weeks from launch. Batman: Arkham Knight's patch is over 10GB. Rainbow Six Siege's patches are 16GB. FFXV patches are 9GB.

There is virtually no difference (we're talking $10) for them to have a 128GB internal storage from 32GB internal storage. These cards are high margin items and cost very little to produce.

I feel like this decision if counter intuitive because digital is higher margin for Nintendo, so they should incentive people to go that route, not make it harder.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

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m_csquare on 13 January 2017
RolStoppable said:
The storage thing is nothing new. Most people don't understand that a 1:1 conversion doesn't work. 1GB on PS/Xbox is not the same as 1GB on Nintendo.

Kek. Can i vote this post as post of the year?



justinian on 13 January 2017
RolStoppable said:
The storage thing is nothing new. Most people don't understand that a 1:1 conversion doesn't work. 1GB on PS/Xbox is not the same as 1GB on Nintendo.

This is true, yet I had over 500GB of downloaded games on the WiiU and 250GB on my PS4. It has absolutely nothing to do with conversion but how much you download. If you download a lot of games you will use up a lot of storage, I don't care if it is 2:1 in Nintendo's favour. 

Thats the only fact that matters.



Random_Matt on 13 January 2017

Nintendo fans will take a bullet for the company, no matter how much they shit on ya.



MDMAlliance on 13 January 2017
Random_Matt said:

Nintendo fans will take a bullet for the company, no matter how much they shit on ya.

I don't think that's true, but I definitely see where you're coming from.  There is a divorcing of what they create and how they run their company.



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Conina on 13 January 2017
dongo8 said:

I'm sorry there are so many Nintendo Switch topics on this forum, I really am, but I didn't see one addressing what is to me a very important point. The Nintendo Switch has what many call "Low Storage Capacity" and in a sense you are right, compared to current gen consoles the storage capacity IS low. But now consider this, the current gen also has to copy games to the harddrive on the system in order to even play the game using a DISC, so there are often 50-60 gb games that are saved on our current gen consoles eating up space. The storage on the Switch is 32 gb, yes but it is not the typical storage that you get with an XBox One and a PS4.

The main and most important difference is the fact that the Switch uses cartridges for its games. This makes it possible to have save data store in small capacities right on the gamecard, but also makes it a very fast read/write system and it runs right from the cartridge itself. No writing elsewhere and reading from there, so the 50 gb games that may pop up (I don't know what the official capacity is on the game cards) will not need to be written on the system, that would be used for game updates, and maybe some save file stuff.

The problem with the 32 gb storage really arises for download only gamers, but again this is easily rectified with a micro SD card. Nobody really WANTS to have to buy separate storage and everyone thinks that it is cheesy to have a system release with insufficient storage, but I have had to purchase an external harddrive for my XBox One as well, so really it's the same idea. The nice thing is the storage is super fast-reading, even in the expandable form, much faster than a harddrive on an XBox One or PS4. Download only gamers will definitely need to expand, but it is not a huge price wall or anything to purchase a new SD card.

So, do you have benchmarks for that claim? Boot time from a cold start? Loading times of Switch games? Transfer speeds of sequential and random reads and writes?

Not every flash memory is fast. How do we know if the internal memory of the Switch is faster than the HDDs in the PS4 and Xbox One? How do we know if the reading from the Switch game carts is faster than reading data from the HDDs in the PS4 and Xbox One? Many MicroSD cards are also slower than the HDDs in the PS4 and Xbox One, especially if you want to save some bucks.



outlawauron on 13 January 2017
RolStoppable said:
The storage thing is nothing new. Most people don't understand that a 1:1 conversion doesn't work. 1GB on PS/Xbox is not the same as 1GB on Nintendo.

This is true, but also in that PS4/X1 all have 500GB+ so the devs are given outs to being lazy with assets and compression. They don't have to optimize those things because space isn't a concern.



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.

aikohualda on 13 January 2017
SWORDF1SH said:
32GB! This confirms that third parties are unlikely to support the Switch. How else can they release an unfinished game and patch it later if Switch doesnt have the storage space.

I hope the cartridge will have a few gig inside for updates :( so the game cartridge will be updated fully instead of using your 32 gb memory



 

Olivernintentoal on 13 January 2017
dongo8 said:

they are adding extra value with a free monthly game or two as well. 

That sounds like a misunderstanding to me.  You can PLAY a SNES game for free for a month, but you still have to buy it if you want to keep it. 



Playing Xenoblade 2 before I buy Xenoblade 3 (otherwise I couldn't wait to play 3).

Can they announce a new Fire Emblem? A remake of Genealogy or Tellius would suffice !

Machiavellian on 13 January 2017
RolStoppable said:
The storage thing is nothing new. Most people don't understand that a 1:1 conversion doesn't work. 1GB on PS/Xbox is not the same as 1GB on Nintendo.

Is this the reason why 3rd party support is so small.  Will this not mean the same situation for the Switch where games made for the other system just do not line up properly for the switch and thus the Switch becomes pretty much a Nintendo only gaming system.  Not that I need the Switch ot have big 3rd party support since I have a PS4 Pro and X1 but what this does mean is that the Switch is regulated to being and additional piece for a home that either has a PS4 or X1 but not a main console.  This could severly limit the audience of the console and regulate its sales to WiiU levels.