Nintendo is getting serious about online!

[Viper1]

Sal.Paradise said:

Viper1 said:

Perhaps I should note that download size is always smaller than the HDD size because the game can be compressed for digital delivery.  So a 10 GB game on the disc won't be a 10 GB download.   But even if that comes out to be just a 5 GB download (figure just for debate purposes) you can't lock downloads to 5 GB because the games will get bigger.  Currently believed to be 25 GB per layer.  So it could go to 50 GB or even 75 GB if it's capable of triple layering.

My point is you don't want to lock down the download cap to a level equal to launch title file sizes because game sizes certainly will nto stay that small.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them do multiple small(er) parts per game - Mario Universe part 1 (5gb), part 2(5gb), part 3(5gb) etc. The problem will be the HDD size itself, as you said, those third party games when unpacked will get rather large.

I don't think they'll do that because that would be very confusing for people new to digital downloading.

As for HDD options, I suspect they'll allow for external HDD's.   Probably via a USB 3 connection.   The SD card option may be designed to keep files in their compressed state and decompress them to a high speed internal NAND storage for game use.  That would save a lot of space and make in game load times almost non-existent.