spemanig said:
I think you underestimate how big Pokemon is, and how big of a difference TPC is compared to Nintendo in terms of marketing. Look at Pokemon20 compared to literally any other Nintendo anniversary ever for reference. The rumor isn't that there will only be 16GB cards, it's that that's the recommended standard. The issue with that is what that implies for cart prices. 2GB was the recommended standard for 3DS cards, even though games could use 4GB and 8GB carts if they wanted. You know why games rarely used 4GB carts or higher? Because they were too expensive to manufacture. 2GB let devs sit comfortably at $40. 4GB made Capcom want to raise the price of ResiRev to $50. They didn't and ate the cost because people complained. They never released the sequel on the 3DS. I wonder why. The reason 16GB is an issue is because that's probably the break even point for a $60 Switch game. Anymore, and devs have to either eat the costs internally (which Nintendo doesn't need to worry about because it's their platform), or charge more for their games. If a 16GB game is $60, how much will a 32GB game be? $70? What about 64GB? $85? God forbid a game is bigger than that. Infinite Warfare was 130GB. It's not like that's going to install onto 32GB of internal memory. Are they going to squeeze that onto a 128GB cart? What's that going to be? $100? When making a game of the same size on the PS4/XBO costs pennies on the dollar because disks are so much cheaper? You think that's crazy, but $128GB carts are going for $40 rn. Obviously there's a discrepency because it's a consumer product vs a manufacturer's product, but how much discrepancy can there be with a $39 price difference? This is a problem because, no matter what anyone wants to believe, this is NOT a handheld. It is a CONSOLE, being marketed at a CONSLOLE audience with CONSOLE quality games. Those games are bigger than handheld games and cost more than handheld games and Nintendo seems to have built hardware that doesn't comprehend that. If they did, it would not have used cartridges. Or it would have but would've given the Switch an insane amount of internal memory to compensate, because external memory of a large enough size won't be affordable in an SD card form factor for years. Right now, a 512GB micro SD card is $309. People are in this honeymoon daze about the magic of cartridges, and the reality is they are just as much of a 3rd party killer now as they were on the N64. Short of Nintendo giving third parties a MASSIVE manufacturing break, this is a very real issue that will detrementally effect the games they get. And these rumors come from the same people who leaked the Switch in the first place. It's time to stop pretending they don't know what they're talking about when we know that they do. |
Pokemon is very powerful, but seeing as how Nintendo was so bad at marketing Wii U it took literally 2 years before the entire gaming audience to even know it was a new machine, I don't think it would have helped as much as you think. Wii U's marketing was spectacularly bad.
As for cartridge issues, first off, I know it is a console. Been saying that the whole time. Second of all, I don't think 16GB = same as a blueray. I think it's just the starting base model so to speak. I would say 32 GB would be where it would probably fall. And I think 64GB will be available. How this impacts things depends on Nintendo's deals to get these things made, they have considerable connections in the card making industry obviously. Also, a sizable portion of games on the PS4 and Xbone would fit on 32GB, and nearly all would fit on a 64GB. In fact, 99% of the games outside those sizes are litterally one easy step away from fitting: compressing their freaking audio. It's a step for devs, but one they should be taking anyway because a 6 hour shooter with 15 online maps and a soundtrack of about 15 being six times the size of Skyrim is nothing sort of a demonstration of naked, giggling contempt for the customer who has to deal with that data management nonsense. It will be interesting to see how it goes.
And no, I don't think the issue is *nearly* as bad as N64 days where 90% of 3rd party games literally couldn't fit, although it could be an issue. And I stand by my prediction from years ago, cartridges or cards are going to eventually be the standard physical medium. Physical isn't going anywhere and consoles can't keep chasing PC-ness, it's a war of atrition they cannot win. Convenience will be the future if consoles have one. I do wonder though as you if this is too soon, so it could be a problem. We'll see in about six or seven months. One posibility is Nintendo will absorb some of those costs for 64GB cards early on until the price falls some more, really depends on how much Nintendo really wants those 3rd parties.
I am well aware that these sources have proven decently reliable, but I also know how massive companies work: compartmentalization. Very few individuals know everything, so the source could know one thing and not know numerous other things. Which is why I take the these rumors, go "hmm, interesting", evaluate their plausibility, and then move on with my date and wait to see what happens.
