By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Biggerboat1 on 17 November 2023
Edit Thread
sc94597 said:
Chrkeller said:

What is the thought on storage for the S2? I ask because most modern AAA titles are 60 to 100 gb. Cartridges are not cheap nor are they fast. Even the V90 SD I think are 100 to 200 mb/s read speeds. Not much compared to the M2 5000+ mb/s. M2 is expensive, and I don't see Nintendo going that route. I honestly don't know how they plan on handling storage.

CFExpress could be an option. Somewhat expensive (cheapest I could find is $98 for 512GB; $164 for 1TB), but prices could come down enough by the time the Switch 2 releases, and if it induces enough demand for mass production. 

Right now they're mostly sold to professional photographers, which is a small niche market. 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1785567-REG/silicon_power_sp512gbcfeb21v10_512gb_cfexpress_type_b.html

As for internal storage I am guessing Nintendo will go with a relatively cheap 512 GB 2230 solution. They can get as low as $20 per unit if bought in bulk purchases of millions, and the price will get cheaper over the life of the system. 

And of course, Nintendo should support USB SSDs for playing games in docked mode/backup storage to swap them between the internal drive and external drive. 

The only thing I am stumped on is what cartridges they use. Maybe they'll require installs from relatively slow ROMs (100 MB/s - 200 MB/s) and push digital hard. 

Edit: A year ago that same exact 512GB CFExpress card cost $249, so prices seem to be dropping. 

Edit 2: They gobble up 2.5W though, which is a bit much for a portable device that likely won't exceed 12W undocked. In comparison a Micro SD card gobbles up .5W. CFExpress Type A gobbles up 1.75W which isn't much better than Type B and is far more expensive currently. 

I guess battery technology has to have improved as well in 7 years?

Looking at the Galaxy S series phones (not sure if best product for comparison...), but the S23 sports a 3900 mAh battery, compared to it's 7 year older sibling's, (S7) 3000 mAh.

So a 30% increase. If that improvement applies to Switch's battery type then the extra capacity could potentially be used to drive a higher wattage for similar battery life to S1 - though my intuition tells me Nintendo would more readily opt for longer battery life...