By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Predict the price for Switch 2

 

Predict the price for Switch 2

249.99 0 0%
 
299.99 2 1.74%
 
349.99 32 27.83%
 
399.99 66 57.39%
 
449.99 8 6.96%
 
499.99 5 4.35%
 
549.99 1 0.87%
 
599.99 1 0.87%
 
Total:115
Soundwave said:
RolStoppable said:

I've been talking about the prices of Samsung and SanDisk micro SD cards. Do some research before you post.

Those are still slow as shit, do you own research. Micro SD Cards are an incredibly dated format it doesn't matter who makes the card. 150MB/sec (and you don't even get that speed) in today's day and age is laughable. 

Nintendo is probably going have to change something because if the Switch 2 has more RAM than the Switch 1 (which is almost 100% a given), the loading times that are already pretty bad on the Switch are going to get worse if you just stick to slow ass SD Cards and flash storage from 2010. 150MB/sec to fill an 8GB main memory would take 53 seconds, that's absurdly slow, if the Switch 2 has 12GB or 16GB it's even worse. 

Even UFS 2.2, which is ancient and dirt cheap used in budget smartphones for the market in China/India is way faster than an SD Card or the current Switch cartridges. I think Nintendo will change that up to faster flash storage. UFS 2.2 is 1200MB/sec versus an SD Card, even a more expensive "pro" SD Card tops out at like 190MB/sec. 

I can't see Nintendo sticking with the current data speeds they have now, so if the Switch 2 uses even dirt cheap, old ass UFS 2.2, that's going to be a massive speed boost over the Switch 1 flash storage which was already faster than SD Cards. In layman's terms, take a look at this loading time:

(video)

For Switch 2, even using UFS 2.2 (again a very dated/cheapo flash storage), that loading time for the internal storage would easily be 5x-8x faster, so like the whole point of "well you can just buy a cheap SD Card!" doesn't come close to telling the whole story. An SD Card is slow as fuck and while it can (barely) keep up with the Switch 1's internal storage, Switch 2 will almost certainly destroy an SD Card in a comparison like above, so in your scenario you claim the person who bought the SD Card was super smart, but they'll be sitting waiting 40-60 seconds waiting for their game to load, while if Switch 2 uses any kind of modern flash storage ... they will be playing that same game within 5-8 seconds if that. Again, you get what you pay for, SD Cards are cheap for people who don't have money, but that's about it. A Switch 2 with more internal flash storage even at 1200MB/sec is going to blow the socks off any SD Card and would easily be worth $50 more going from 64GB to 256GB, that's bordering on a steal frankly. 

All this sounds like Nintendo would have to follow a PS5-like solution where the internal storage is small in comparison to the size of the games and a constant deletion and reinstallation of games is mandatory. People buy HDDs as external storage for the PS5 to keep their games on, then have them be copied over to the SSD from which they play them.

And in this case it would once again be pretty pointless to shell out money for more internal storage for the people who need a lot of space to begin with. They require external storage in any case, so the cheaper console SKU remains the smart way to go.



Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.

Around the Network
RolStoppable said:
Soundwave said:

Those are still slow as shit, do you own research. Micro SD Cards are an incredibly dated format it doesn't matter who makes the card. 150MB/sec (and you don't even get that speed) in today's day and age is laughable. 

Nintendo is probably going have to change something because if the Switch 2 has more RAM than the Switch 1 (which is almost 100% a given), the loading times that are already pretty bad on the Switch are going to get worse if you just stick to slow ass SD Cards and flash storage from 2010. 150MB/sec to fill an 8GB main memory would take 53 seconds, that's absurdly slow, if the Switch 2 has 12GB or 16GB it's even worse. 

Even UFS 2.2, which is ancient and dirt cheap used in budget smartphones for the market in China/India is way faster than an SD Card or the current Switch cartridges. I think Nintendo will change that up to faster flash storage. UFS 2.2 is 1200MB/sec versus an SD Card, even a more expensive "pro" SD Card tops out at like 190MB/sec. 

I can't see Nintendo sticking with the current data speeds they have now, so if the Switch 2 uses even dirt cheap, old ass UFS 2.2, that's going to be a massive speed boost over the Switch 1 flash storage which was already faster than SD Cards. In layman's terms, take a look at this loading time:

(video)

For Switch 2, even using UFS 2.2 (again a very dated/cheapo flash storage), that loading time for the internal storage would easily be 5x-8x faster, so like the whole point of "well you can just buy a cheap SD Card!" doesn't come close to telling the whole story. An SD Card is slow as fuck and while it can (barely) keep up with the Switch 1's internal storage, Switch 2 will almost certainly destroy an SD Card in a comparison like above, so in your scenario you claim the person who bought the SD Card was super smart, but they'll be sitting waiting 40-60 seconds waiting for their game to load, while if Switch 2 uses any kind of modern flash storage ... they will be playing that same game within 5-8 seconds if that. Again, you get what you pay for, SD Cards are cheap for people who don't have money, but that's about it. A Switch 2 with more internal flash storage even at 1200MB/sec is going to blow the socks off any SD Card and would easily be worth $50 more going from 64GB to 256GB, that's bordering on a steal frankly. 

All this sounds like Nintendo would have to follow a PS5-like solution where the internal storage is small in comparison to the size of the games and a constant deletion and reinstallation of games is mandatory. People buy HDDs as external storage for the PS5 to keep their games on, then have them be copied over to the SSD from which they play them.

And in this case it would once again be pretty pointless to shell out money for more internal storage for the people who need a lot of space to begin with. They require external storage in any case, so the cheaper console SKU remains the smart way to go.

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):

Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 September 2023

Soundwave said:
RolStoppable said:

Your post is stupid. The massmarket isn't oblivious to the ever-dropping prices of SD cards. By the time Switch 2 is out, it should be very common to find 512 GB SD cards going for $50 and under. Heck, 1 TB micro SD cards cost only around $100 today.

If someone is digital-only and in need of more storage and has the choice between your hypothetical 256 GB Switch 2 for $450 or your hypothetical 64 GB Switch 2 with a 1 TB SD card for $500 combined... it's not hard to do the math here.

It's funny how you always jump on whatever the latest rumor is and come up with fantasy scenarios. Also funny how you love to talk about technology, but fail at pretty much the most basic level of storage capacity and its price.

Sure you can get a junk Micro SD Card for $50 with a lot of storage, but that's going to be a crap 100-170MB/sec card that's slow as molasses. Just like you can get an old regular fat HDD with 4TB and declare yourself a genius because you have way more storage than the NVMe drives Sony and MS sell for the PS5/XSX. There's just one problem, your drive is a turtle by comparison. 

Nintendo could easily get UFS 3.0 or 3.1 speed internal flash storage, which can have up to 2100MB/sec read speed, it will blow any SD Card out of the water. And UFS 3.0 isn't some magical new or exotic technology, it's just the standard flash memory that's in hundreds of millions of Android phones and tablets already. And UFS 3.0 is the *old* standard from 2018, the new Android devices use UFS 4.0 which is double the speed, so Nintendo would likely be getting the 3.0/3.1 dated version for a laugher of a cost. 

If Nintendo were to offer it, I think plenty of people would rather pay the extra $50 and have the higher speed internal storage. Relative to what you pay to go up in storage for say an iPhone or iPad, getting double or quadruple (lol) the amount of high speed internal storage that's way faster than an SD Card for only $50 more is not bad at all. Also a lot of those cheap SD Cards have high failure rates and don't actually even hit the low end speed they claim, seen plenty of "150MB/sec cards" Micro SD cards that when tested are only reading at 80MB/sec if you're lucky ... you get what you pay for. 

UFS flash storage has other big advantages over older flash storage too, it's smaller and consumes less battery power. 

Or they could simply get a M.2 SSD if they want higher speeds. A small 256GB M.2 2242 costs just below 20€, 25€ for the even smaller 2230 format. Also, they both come with 2000MB/s second read and ~1000MB/s write. For 30€ you're already able to get a 480GB SSD, so why not go this route for extendable storage?

Also sure, Android Phones have the capability for UFS 3.x - but their chips can't keep up with that, as evidenced whenever you're getting some lengthy loading screens. UFS speeds are highly hypothetical and just like SSDs need multiple chips to achieve their full potential. 256GB SLC would be the absolute minimum fur UFS3.x to even make a difference over past standards - but at the same time, you can get cheaper 500GB MLC with similar speeds. In other words, going UFS 3.x and less than 500GB would be a waste of UFS. At that point, I don't think Nintendo would create another storage tier anymore.



Bofferbrauer2 said:
Soundwave said:

Sure you can get a junk Micro SD Card for $50 with a lot of storage, but that's going to be a crap 100-170MB/sec card that's slow as molasses. Just like you can get an old regular fat HDD with 4TB and declare yourself a genius because you have way more storage than the NVMe drives Sony and MS sell for the PS5/XSX. There's just one problem, your drive is a turtle by comparison. 

Nintendo could easily get UFS 3.0 or 3.1 speed internal flash storage, which can have up to 2100MB/sec read speed, it will blow any SD Card out of the water. And UFS 3.0 isn't some magical new or exotic technology, it's just the standard flash memory that's in hundreds of millions of Android phones and tablets already. And UFS 3.0 is the *old* standard from 2018, the new Android devices use UFS 4.0 which is double the speed, so Nintendo would likely be getting the 3.0/3.1 dated version for a laugher of a cost. 

If Nintendo were to offer it, I think plenty of people would rather pay the extra $50 and have the higher speed internal storage. Relative to what you pay to go up in storage for say an iPhone or iPad, getting double or quadruple (lol) the amount of high speed internal storage that's way faster than an SD Card for only $50 more is not bad at all. Also a lot of those cheap SD Cards have high failure rates and don't actually even hit the low end speed they claim, seen plenty of "150MB/sec cards" Micro SD cards that when tested are only reading at 80MB/sec if you're lucky ... you get what you pay for. 

UFS flash storage has other big advantages over older flash storage too, it's smaller and consumes less battery power. 

Or they could simply get a M.2 SSD if they want higher speeds. A small 256GB M.2 2242 costs just below 20€, 25€ for the even smaller 2230 format. Also, they both come with 2000MB/s second read and ~1000MB/s write. For 30€ you're already able to get a 480GB SSD, so why not go this route for extendable storage?

Also sure, Android Phones have the capability for UFS 3.x - but their chips can't keep up with that, as evidenced whenever you're getting some lengthy loading screens. UFS speeds are highly hypothetical and just like SSDs need multiple chips to achieve their full potential. 256GB SLC would be the absolute minimum fur UFS3.x to even make a difference over past standards - but at the same time, you can get cheaper 500GB MLC with similar speeds. In other words, going UFS 3.x and less than 500GB would be a waste of UFS. At that point, I don't think Nintendo would create another storage tier anymore.

Even UFS 2.2 is going to be considerably faster than the eMMC 5.1 the Switch 1 uses now and way faster than an SD Card though. Android phones have a lot of bloatware too and Switch 2 probably will also have LPDDR5 RAM (pretty fast) which will help utilize that hypothetical UFS speed better, not all Android phones have that.

Would I like M.2 SSD and all that jazz ... sure, but I think it would make the system too expensive and/or take money away that could spent on the chipset/RAM, which I think are more important. 

I think UFS is probably the best compromise. It's cheap and widely available and faster than the current Switch or SD Cards. eMMC is too slow for a system that's going to have a large increase in system RAM and larger game file sizes, SD Card is even worse.

If games like Zelda: ToTK already have like load/wait times of 47 seconds to get into a game, I mean you're going to be seeing 1+ minute waits on Switch 2 without a change, which is kind of hilarious for a company that basically handed over the stationary home console market to Sony because they were that adverse to like 10 seconds of loading back in the day. 



Soundwave said:
RolStoppable said:

I've been talking about the prices of Samsung and SanDisk micro SD cards. Do some research before you post.

Those are still slow as shit, do you own research. Micro SD Cards are an incredibly dated format it doesn't matter who makes the card. 150MB/sec (and you don't even get that speed) in today's day and age is laughable. 

Nintendo is probably going have to change something because if the Switch 2 has more RAM than the Switch 1 (which is almost 100% a given), the loading times that are already pretty bad on the Switch are going to get worse if you just stick to slow ass SD Cards and flash storage from 2010. 150MB/sec to fill an 8GB main memory would take 53 seconds, that's absurdly slow, if the Switch 2 has 12GB or 16GB it's even worse. 

Even UFS 2.2, which is ancient and dirt cheap used in budget smartphones for the market in China/India is way faster than an SD Card or the current Switch cartridges. I think Nintendo will change that up to faster flash storage. UFS 2.2 is 1200MB/sec versus an SD Card, even a more expensive "pro" SD Card tops out at like 190MB/sec. 

I can't see Nintendo sticking with the current data speeds they have now, so if the Switch 2 uses even dirt cheap, old ass UFS 2.2, that's going to be a massive speed boost over the Switch 1 flash storage which was already faster than SD Cards. In layman's terms, take a look at this loading time:

For Switch 2, even using UFS 2.2 (again a very dated/cheapo flash storage), that loading time for the internal storage would easily be 5x-8x faster, so like the whole point of "well you can just buy a cheap SD Card!" doesn't come close to telling the whole story. An SD Card is slow as fuck and while it can (barely) keep up with the Switch 1's internal storage, Switch 2 will almost certainly destroy an SD Card in a comparison like above, so in your scenario you claim the person who bought the SD Card was super smart, but they'll be sitting waiting 40-60 seconds waiting for their game to load, while if Switch 2 uses any kind of modern flash storage ... they will be playing that same game within 5-8 seconds if that. Again, you get what you pay for, SD Cards are cheap for people who don't have money, but that's about it. A Switch 2 with more internal flash storage even at 1200MB/sec is going to blow the socks off any SD Card and would easily be worth $50 more going from 64GB to 256GB, that's bordering on a steal frankly. 

All the cards on that video were UHS-I or lower. The switch should be able to use USH-II and USH-III. or am I missing something?

 



Around the Network
Chicho said:
Soundwave said:

Those are still slow as shit, do you own research. Micro SD Cards are an incredibly dated format it doesn't matter who makes the card. 150MB/sec (and you don't even get that speed) in today's day and age is laughable. 

Nintendo is probably going have to change something because if the Switch 2 has more RAM than the Switch 1 (which is almost 100% a given), the loading times that are already pretty bad on the Switch are going to get worse if you just stick to slow ass SD Cards and flash storage from 2010. 150MB/sec to fill an 8GB main memory would take 53 seconds, that's absurdly slow, if the Switch 2 has 12GB or 16GB it's even worse. 

Even UFS 2.2, which is ancient and dirt cheap used in budget smartphones for the market in China/India is way faster than an SD Card or the current Switch cartridges. I think Nintendo will change that up to faster flash storage. UFS 2.2 is 1200MB/sec versus an SD Card, even a more expensive "pro" SD Card tops out at like 190MB/sec. 

I can't see Nintendo sticking with the current data speeds they have now, so if the Switch 2 uses even dirt cheap, old ass UFS 2.2, that's going to be a massive speed boost over the Switch 1 flash storage which was already faster than SD Cards. In layman's terms, take a look at this loading time:

For Switch 2, even using UFS 2.2 (again a very dated/cheapo flash storage), that loading time for the internal storage would easily be 5x-8x faster, so like the whole point of "well you can just buy a cheap SD Card!" doesn't come close to telling the whole story. An SD Card is slow as fuck and while it can (barely) keep up with the Switch 1's internal storage, Switch 2 will almost certainly destroy an SD Card in a comparison like above, so in your scenario you claim the person who bought the SD Card was super smart, but they'll be sitting waiting 40-60 seconds waiting for their game to load, while if Switch 2 uses any kind of modern flash storage ... they will be playing that same game within 5-8 seconds if that. Again, you get what you pay for, SD Cards are cheap for people who don't have money, but that's about it. A Switch 2 with more internal flash storage even at 1200MB/sec is going to blow the socks off any SD Card and would easily be worth $50 more going from 64GB to 256GB, that's bordering on a steal frankly. 

All the cards on that video were UHS-I or lower. The switch should be able to use USH-II and USH-III, Should it not?

 

UHS-II Micro SD Cards (emphasis on Micro SD) are very rare and not cheap. 

Like here's one on Amazon at 256GB ... 

microSD Card V60 (256GB) - Tested Like a Full-Size SD Card for use in DSLRs, mirrorless and Aerial or Action Cameras | Up to 250MB/Read Speed and 130MB/s Write Speed by ProGrade Digital : Amazon.ca: Electronics

It's $138 for 256GB ... simply not worth it for only 250MB/read speed (which it probably doesn't even hit, SD Cards quite often don't even hit 70% of their rated speed). 

250MB/sec in this day and age is slllllllow, but really Nintendo should be able to get internal storage that is considerably faster than that even for cheap. 

Loading times are becoming an issue in a lot of Switch titles too, like even something like Animal Crossing it's like 40 seconds of loading to get from the title screen into playing a game ... just way too long. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 06 September 2023

64 gb internal storage makes zero sense. Games will be much larger on the switch 2. There is zero point in releasing something with 64 gb.

Nintendo isn't going to make a high end switch2, there will be compromises.



Soundwave said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

Or they could simply get a M.2 SSD if they want higher speeds. A small 256GB M.2 2242 costs just below 20€, 25€ for the even smaller 2230 format. Also, they both come with 2000MB/s second read and ~1000MB/s write. For 30€ you're already able to get a 480GB SSD, so why not go this route for extendable storage?

Also sure, Android Phones have the capability for UFS 3.x - but their chips can't keep up with that, as evidenced whenever you're getting some lengthy loading screens. UFS speeds are highly hypothetical and just like SSDs need multiple chips to achieve their full potential. 256GB SLC would be the absolute minimum fur UFS3.x to even make a difference over past standards - but at the same time, you can get cheaper 500GB MLC with similar speeds. In other words, going UFS 3.x and less than 500GB would be a waste of UFS. At that point, I don't think Nintendo would create another storage tier anymore.

Even UFS 2.2 is going to be considerably faster than the eMMC 5.1 the Switch 1 uses now and way faster than an SD Card though. Android phones have a lot of bloatware too and Switch 2 probably will also have LPDDR5 RAM (pretty fast) which will help utilize that hypothetical UFS speed better, not all Android phones have that.

Would I like M.2 SSD and all that jazz ... sure, but I think it would make the system too expensive and/or take money away that could spent on the chipset/RAM, which I think are more important. 

I think UFS is probably the best compromise. It's cheap and widely available and faster than the current Switch or SD Cards. eMMC is too slow for a system that's going to have a large increase in system RAM and larger game file sizes, SD Card is even worse.

If games like Zelda: ToTK already have like load/wait times of 47 seconds to get into a game, I mean you're going to be seeing 1+ minute waits on Switch 2 without a change, which is kind of hilarious for a company that basically handed over the stationary home console market to Sony because they were that adverse to like 10 seconds of loading back in the day. 

The problem with UFS is that whenever something is stored on something else than the internal flash memory, it would absolutely tank the performance like in your example, hence my M.2 suggestion for external memory to be able to keep up with the internal memory. Having too big a disparity between internal and external speeds would be a nightmare for load times and especially texture streaming and result in the same issue we have since PS360: They needed to install games first to make up for the loss of speed, but in the Switch's case it would pretty much mean that the internal memory could not be extended (just like on most phones these days too btw).

I agree that most SD cards are too slow and that UFS could be a good match for the internal memory. But we'd need to have an external memory that can match those speeds to not fall behind too much and cause problems.

I couldn't find any UFS cards on Amazon despite the standard being from 2016, neither could I find any CFExpress cards or SD Express cards, which achieve similar speeds (2019 and 2018 respectively), and UHS-II SD cards are both too slow and prohibitively expensive. Edit: I could find CFExpress cards on a german PC retailer site, but that memory is also prohibitively expensive compared to using M.2 sticks.

As such, the only real options are either the slow SD cards, the fast but more expensive to implement M.2 sticks or Nintendo coming with a propietary standard, which looking back at previous consoles is generally a pretty bad idea.



Soundwave said:
RolStoppable said:

All this sounds like Nintendo would have to follow a PS5-like solution where the internal storage is small in comparison to the size of the games and a constant deletion and reinstallation of games is mandatory. People buy HDDs as external storage for the PS5 to keep their games on, then have them be copied over to the SSD from which they play them.

And in this case it would once again be pretty pointless to shell out money for more internal storage for the people who need a lot of space to begin with. They require external storage in any case, so the cheaper console SKU remains the smart way to go.

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.



Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.

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