I've read few comments.. Do people realise the SD Card <> SSD? A fast 128GB SD Card goes up to 90-95MB/s reading speed and 30-35 MB/s writing speed. HDDs in the PS4/XB1 are generally faster. And SSD can be much, much master (500MB/s easily).

Then I've seen this table...

First of all, as it has been pointed out already, 50GB is the maximum size for a game in the two consoles with HDDs. Second, people like to buy digital as well. And tehre the result will be the same, if the games are of the same size (hardly since I bet the Switch games will have a lower resolution). Third, patches may even be 15GB big, but that doesn't mean that the space added to the final installation will be 15GB. Because when installing a patch many files get replaced and some even deleted. Theoretically it's even possible the case where, after a patch, the installation is actually smaller. Then sure, the DLCs do require more space since they add new content.

Said that I am not against SD cards. The technology is there, they will get bigger, faster and cheaper (unlike the HDDs lately), and they are easily replaced. So why not..

50GB isn't the maximum size for a PS4/XBO game. 50GB is only the BR limit. The new CoD is expected to need 130GB.

You couldn't fit more than 3 of those on a 500GB HD. Switch could use a campaign and multiplayer cart each and wouldn't lose 1/3 of it's storage in the process.

SD only has to worry about read speed and it's ~equal to HDD at 90-95 and can go much higher.

SSD in consoles is interesting. People are already upgrading to 2TB HD for PS4/XBO and that's going to be very, very expensive using SSD. Not to mention 4K video and other assets are going to increase game sizes even further. 130GB of video content at 1080p becomes 520GB at 4K, so faster transfer speeds required. BR's speed and size is going to be a bottleneck.

If Sony/MS move to carts next gen, then the HD size won't have to be as big, making SSD more economical and much faster. If not, then surely it would be better to use multiple, tiny, micro-SD cards as storage instead of a much bigger, spinning drive, assuming SD cards continue to plummet in price.

Neither is 50GB the minimum size of an PS4/XBO game. There are a lot of PS4/XBO games that need less than 20 GB or 10 GB, patches included.

I really hope that these assumptions about how well SSD cards work turn out true.

It takes damn long to copy the contents off a 32GB SDHC card to my pc. It takes forever for the WiiU to start up and launch a game from internal memory. My 1080p camera gives the middle finger to the so called class 10 SDHC cards, not fast enough for 24mbps write speed. (while rated at 80mbps)

I use them for storage yet don't really associate fast speed with them. I don't buy the expensive ones though. Perhaps the 128GB Class 10 UHS-2 SDXC cards for CAD 230 can keep up, yet that's almost as much as a console, plus the write speed of those cards still only matches the write speed of a 5400 rpm hdd.


Anyway what happened to all the wonders of digital games, cheaper, use/play anywhere, pre-loading, no card/disk carrying/swapping. Nintendo is bringing physical back.

Yeah was reading that thinking of Star Trek Online, the MMO on the PS4 comes in at around 14-16GB I think... and the universe in it is just massive.

Or games like Minecraft which comes in around 1GB but yeah.. suggesting that 50GB is the standard PS4 game is just insane.

Well, I stand corrected about the maximum size. I wasn't updated.  Still your point is quite fallace. It's only a game game with that size. Apart from CoD, which isn't out yet, all games use only 1 BR disc. This is a list of install size for PS4 games, . The ones above 50GB are bundles:

https://www.finder.com/complete-list-playstation-4-install-sizes-460-titles

As you can see the average size is probably around 25GB, even less. And for physical disks that's temporary space, a cache that one can delete at any time, without any trouble on PS4 since to start a game reinstalliation takes only few seconds. I've been told in the XB1 is much, much longer. But they can use external HDDs some that balance it. Also the new consoles all have a 1TB (or more) SKU which costs a reasonable price. The 500GB HDD is going to be a thing of the past, if it isn't already.

And yes, the SD card reading speed is close to the one of the HDDs and that is the one that matter the most. Also the SD cards come with some benefits, since there is no seek time on flash memory. But they are NOT SSD as some other people clearly thought. Also SSD on consoles are currently nearly useless (again, seek times apart) because both consoles have a SATA II bus instead of a SATA III, needed for best, real SSD performances.

Anyway, personally I had already predicted that the next console(s) could be a tablet running on SD Cards. It made sense. It's just that I didn't expect one to come out so early. But SD cards are IMO the future for gaming. They are getting bigger, cheaper and faster everyday, and one can carry them in a pocket. Their only major problem is that they are so small that it is too easy to lose one. :D