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Soundwave on 06 September 2023
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RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

You don't really need something as expensive as the PS5's hyper fast internal storage. Sure it is nice, and actually makes more sense for a portable machine, but Sony is also using that speed to do things like using the SSD as almost like a RAM buffer/pool in some games, since it's so fast it can operate almost like system RAM. I'm not even sure how many games even use that but that was their idea. 

Nintendo will easily be able to get something many times faster than the existing flash memory in Switch 1 without needing a solution like that. 

Flash storage speeds in mobile devices have come a long, long way since 2015-16 because of all the competition in the smartphone space, as I said Nintendo could use something cheap like UFS 2.0-2.2 flash storage, but even UFS 2.2 can give you like 800MB-1000MB/sec, the current Switch internal flash storage is probably around 100-120MB/sec, so that would be several times faster.

UFS 2.0-UFS 2.2 is what's used in no-name budget smartphones, so we're not talking about bleeding edge tech here at all, it debuted I think in the Samsung Galaxy S6 ... which is a phone from 2015, today no flagship phone uses it because UFS 3.0, UFS 3.1, and now UFS 4.0 are available. 

EDIT: The Switch 1 uses eMMC 5.1 internal flash storage it looks like, ... which is what smartphones used to use like pre-2015, you can see how much faster even UFS 2.1 is here (keep in mind an SD Card is slower than even eMMC 5.1):

(video)

Your post doesn't address how internal AND external storage will look like on Switch 2. But that's crucial when even your hypothetical 256 GB Switch 2 SKU has nowhere near enough space for people who need a lot of space for their games.

I mean I have some hunches on what could happen but it probably will upset some people. 

Firstly, it may just become a fact that games running off the main flash storage of the Switch 2 just run and load a lot faster and if you're stuck with SD Card or possibly even the cartridge version, you have longer loading times. And that might get ugly because if Switch games are struggling to feed the Switch 1's 4GB RAM (transferring data over quickly), well then obviously the situation is going to be worse with 8GB-16GB main RAM on Switch 2. 

If this pushes more people to buy digital ... well really Nintendo I don't think is going to be too heartbroken about that. They make $10-$20 more per game sold digitally than at retail where they have to give a retailer their cut, account for shipping fees, cartridge fee, packaging, etc. So if lower loading times are an incentive to push people into buying more digital and also potentially buying a more expensive Switch 2 model with more flash storage ... well technically it's hard to argue it's not a bottom line win for Nintendo, they're making more money. 

There are formats like UFS external cards and CFE which BofferBrauer pointed out above ... but these formats have either never taken and thus are harder to get or are mainly used by higher end camera/videographers/filmmakers and the cards are expensive. 

So the other solution is Nintendo could make proprietary higher speed memory cards, probably based around the UFS format, sold under their own brand. Of course this is controversial because Sony did proprietary cards with Vita, but in this instance Nintendo would have a valid performance reason, SD Cards just are extremely slow so they can argue they are just offering a superior alternative. But these cards would likely still be pricier than SD Cards. 

This works well for Nintendo though, because if you have to pay $70-$80 for a Nintendo brand high speed "memory card/drive", they obviously keep the profit, not SanDisk or whoever and if they're selling say 70-150+ million of those, well thats going to be a nice revenue stream for sure. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 September 2023