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

Fewer movable parts,
less power consumption,
easier to bring games along,
shorter load times,
save data can be brought with you easily,
saves aren't lost if system is bricked or factory reset or stolen,
less heat build-up than from disc drive,
can't get scratched or bent as easily as discs,
no laser that get dusty and must be cleaned,

But all this of course comes with a much higher production cost. Like, stamping out a disc costs nothing next to producing cartridges. Flash memory has gotten cheaper, but just how cheap? I'm excited to hear about Nintendos production policies with physical for this one.



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hunter_alien said:

64 GB would be amazing. Even a 32 gig card. The issue is that as more as you increase the size, your profits drop. Nintendo might push a multi-size approach here, but then we will see compromise budget wise. As cheap as they got, making a 64 card just for games is still way more expensive than simply pushing it out on BR. And if they choose an even lower size, then yes we will have yet another CD vs Cartridge, 5th gen issue on our hand.

It makes sense they would have multiple tiers of cartridge capacities, so that goes without saying.

It doesn't make sense to use a 64Gb/32Gb/16Gb/8Gb cart if your game is only going to be 4Gb.

And this is all powers of two. Nintendo could opt for multiple memory chips in the carts and combine say... 32Gb with 16Gb for 48Gb.

I can pick up a 32Gb Class 10 MicroSD card these days for about $15 AUD (We are typically expensive). - Nintendo likely has scales of economy on it's side, so we are talking cents per gigabyte now. Not dollars.




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Pemalite said:
hunter_alien said:

64 GB would be amazing. Even a 32 gig card. The issue is that as more as you increase the size, your profits drop. Nintendo might push a multi-size approach here, but then we will see compromise budget wise. As cheap as they got, making a 64 card just for games is still way more expensive than simply pushing it out on BR. And if they choose an even lower size, then yes we will have yet another CD vs Cartridge, 5th gen issue on our hand.

It makes sense they would have multiple tiers of cartridge capacities, so that goes without saying.

It doesn't make sense to use a 64Gb/32Gb/16Gb/8Gb cart if your game is only going to be 4Gb.

And this is all powers of two. Nintendo could opt for multiple memory chips in the carts and combine say... 32Gb with 16Gb for 48Gb.

I can pick up a 32Gb Class 10 MicroSD card these days for about $15 AUD (We are typically expensive). - Nintendo likely has scales of economy on it's side, so we are talking cents per gigabyte now. Not dollars.

Another point to be made is that the 32GB Class 10 card you cited is writeable. Publishers could have the option of non-writeable carts that just save to the system memory (with the 3DS there were two types of carts, and only a few games used the writeable carts.) With less shelf space  taken up, I can also see retail costs dropping a little bit too. Shipping costs and retail space can be quite expensive, and any weight/size reduction can add up a lot.



Pemalite said:
hunter_alien said:

64 GB would be amazing. Even a 32 gig card. The issue is that as more as you increase the size, your profits drop. Nintendo might push a multi-size approach here, but then we will see compromise budget wise. As cheap as they got, making a 64 card just for games is still way more expensive than simply pushing it out on BR. And if they choose an even lower size, then yes we will have yet another CD vs Cartridge, 5th gen issue on our hand.

It makes sense they would have multiple tiers of cartridge capacities, so that goes without saying.

It doesn't make sense to use a 64Gb/32Gb/16Gb/8Gb cart if your game is only going to be 4Gb.

And this is all powers of two. Nintendo could opt for multiple memory chips in the carts and combine say... 32Gb with 16Gb for 48Gb.

I can pick up a 32Gb Class 10 MicroSD card these days for about $15 AUD (We are typically expensive). - Nintendo likely has scales of economy on it's side, so we are talking cents per gigabyte now. Not dollars.

The problem with doing that is you are driving up the price more. What usually happens is Nitendo buys acertin size in bulk, with some storage for saves on a seprate chip. They usually choose a nice size and make that their maximum size for a while. With the 3DS it had the ablity to read carts up to 8GB but they did only allowed games to be 2GB at first because that was the size of the carts they made a deal with Micronex to made for the 3DS.

So I as guessed in my last post. They will probally have a max size again either being 128GB or 256GB and make a deal for 64GB carts. I'm guessing 64GB because it is a little over the size of a duel lay BR disc that most developers are use to. HDR disc are 128GB, but I don't think Nintendo will go that cutting edge plus 64GB flash is about the norm in other use making it probally the cheeper choice.



I welcome cartridges today. Back in the n64 days, it was really stupid. And Nintendo lost a lot of support back then. They contained little space and were really expensive.
Today, the costs are really low. They have faster access time and will reduce loading times significant compares to discs.



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If it means no installs, then perfect. Hopefully patches can be saved on the cartridge too to keep everything together.

Dunno what it will do to the price. It's a good opportunity for 3rd party publishers to hike the price up to $70.



COKTOE said:
shikamaru317 said:
Pretty good. Problem with discs is that they need to be installed for faster load times, and that install takes time, so you have to wait awhile to install a new game. And of course because you have to install everything you need a bigger hard drive. Switch using cartridges means that Nintendo can get away with 32gb of storage (rumored) since installs aren't necessary for physical games. Those who prefer digital are screwed though, with the rumored size of Switch games at like 10-20 GB, you will basically only be able to fit 1-2 digital games on the included 32 gb storage, since OS will take up some of it. Hopefully Switch supports SDXC or the digital crowd is screwed.

This is a non-issue on PS4.

Oh really? Error during install. Please delete some applications and try again. It takes time... Damn demo disc of psvr needed 80GB free before it would run, while it only needs 40GB. It will be a big advantage if the switch doesn't need to install and can save the patches on the cartridge.



I honestly don't care which mode they use. Easier to carry but also easier to lose, i suppose? I still prefer CDs.



"Trick shot? The trick is NOT to get shot." - Lucian

I don't mind at all.



Great! :)