Nintendo Switch Games May Require Memory Cards to Experience All Content

While revealing a new partnership with SD card maker SanDisk, Nintendo has also revealed that, moving forward, some Nintendo Switch games will require a MicroSD card in order to experience the full content of certain upcoming games.

[PhoenixUp]

Geez just when you thought Nintendo couldn't further nickel and dime its consumers...

[AKR]

I wouldn't all this "nickel and diming". Look at the design of the Switch—it's very similar to a tablet. What do tablets use for memory? Flash storage and microSD cards.

Memory typically isn't very cheap. Nintendo could have definitely added more than 32GB, but that would have driven up the price significantly. We see that all the time with smartphones, for instance. Ironically enough, I don't see anyone complaining about having to buy microSD cards for their phones and tablets; usually I see COMPLAINTS if a device doesn't have expandable storage. So, why is it suddenly an issue for the Switch?

This is no different than what's on PS4 and Xbox One. 500GB is not enough for a lot of people these days, so they also have to go out and buy extra storage. If you're going to make noise about one side, then make noise about them ALL.

[TheUndertaker85]

IPhones go up to 256GB. Nintendo could've went with different tiers for memory.

Significant would also be an overstatement as the Switch does not one to one match iPhone specs.

[jagermaster619]

@AKR
I agree, I don't find it a big deal yes its always nice to get more memory at launch but most games don't require you to download it directly to your switch. Not only are most games on Nintendo substantially smaller than Sony or Xbox games but on those consoles you have to download them no if and or buts.

People just love to complain about things and the majority of people complaining don't even own a switch. If it's an issue just buy physical copies!

[PhoenixUp]

There's a huge difference that you don't seem to understand. Even with 500GB, PS4 & XO owners are still guaranteed to be able to download multiple titles on their internal storage.

With 32GB there are literally games that NS cannot fully download on its internal storage.

You are far more promoted to get external storage on NS than you would on PS4 or XO just because how more limited you are.

Not to mention there are no games on PS4 or XO that ask you to get external storage just to get the full experience like there will be NS games that ask their consumers to do so.

[EddieNX]

Like he just said though it's because home consoles have hard drives, tablets and portable devices don't. Just buy a cheap SD card and problem is solved. At least it's not using awful proprietary memory like a certain other handheld.

[The 10th Rider]

But to be fair, with how much Nintendo compresses their games you could fit numerous first party titles on the internal storage without too many issues. Breath of the Wild, Arms, Splatoon 2, Mario Rabbids, and Pokken tournmant DX would all fit on there . . . With BOTW taking up over half the available space.

[Neonridr]

That's because there aren't games that are 500GB on the PS4 or XB1.

[PhoenixUp]

@ Eddie

That's what I mean by the nickel and diming aspect Nintendo continues doing.

- Want a traditional controller? "Just buy" the Pro Controller.
- Want to voice chat? "Just buy" a headset adapter.
- Want to use a wired connection for more stability? "Just buy" and Ethernet adapter.
- Want substantial storage to store significant content? "Just buy" an SD card.

Nintendo will continue making consumers "just buy" things that come standard with the other consoles as long as its consumers don't have a problem with it.

@ The 10th

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild alone takes up half of your entire Switch storage. You aren't going far with 32GB in this age.

@ Neo

Thank god that's not the case and won't be for a very long time until multiple generations from now

[MegamanXXX]

And I just purchase a Nintendo Switch smh

[Apex13]

It's cheap so not an issue

[Theknightofnights]

I don't think Nintendo isn't doing this. It seems that 2K Sports made a decision to use smaller Switch cartridges instead of larger Switch cartridges. The game is only a 25GB download and could fit entirely on a 32GB cart, but for some reason it's requiring a download for a physical copy. This means that they didn't use the 32GB cart and instead opted for the 16GB or 8GB carts instead, likely to save on cost.

[TallonIV]

You act like Nintendo is the only company that does this. All 3 companies do this. Remember the mandatory PS1/2 memory cards? PS Vita memory card prices?

[PhoenixUp]

@ Tallon

Of course PS1 and PS2 needed to use memory cards. Games came on discs so how else would you save your content at the time? How is that comparable to Nintendo purposefully choosing to put a low amount of internal storage in their consoles for three generations straight? Hell PS2's optional HDD had more storage than Wii, Wii U, & Switch.

Vita proprietary memory cards sucked as much as Xbox 360 proprietary HDDs, so of course all the companies have had issues in this department. However this article is about Nintendo in particular.

[Erik7357]

Well the memory cards are respectively much cheaper than what sony did for memory cards for ps vita so I would say they are doing a much better job at having a better price for storage

[SuperSonic91]

That is how yhey make money of Nintendo fans.

[FallenAngel1984]

Those NS game cards can't hold as much data as Blu-Ray discs. An NS game card's capacity can go to 32GB max while Blu-Ray can go up to 50GB. This discrepancy is why this SD requirement for certain games is happening in the first place.

Something similar happened on Vita as well, like for example with FFX/FFX-2 HD where both games were readily available on the Blu-Ray disc on PS3 & PS4 while on Vita only FFX was available on the cartridge while FFX-2 had to be downloaded.

If you thought games coming on multiple discs in the past was bad enough & cumbersome, wait till you get accustomed to this new structure on your hybrid console.

On a side note I always knew that NS's meager 32GB of internal storage would bite consumers in the ass. Also unlike with Wii U, you can't connect an external HDD so you are at the mercy of however big SD cards get at the time.

This becomes even more jarring when you realize that SD cards commonly don't have as attractive as a gigabyte per dollar ratios that HDDs tend to have.

[Neonridr]

32GB currently. No reason to believe we couldn't see a 64GB model or even 128GB down the road.

[FallenAngel1984]

There is reason to believe that 32GB will be the max capacity for NS cartridges when you look at Nintendo's past pedigree.

GameCube for example had discs that could only go to 1.5GB max. Games with large amounts of data needed to be placed across two discs on GameCube, such as Resident Evil 4, Enter the Matrix, Meta Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Tales of Symphonia, & Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Whereas when these games released on PS2 they came on one disc thanks to the superior storage space that DVDs provided. While yes MGS: TTS didn't release on PS2, its engine was based on MGS2 which proved that it could easily come on one DVD disc.

Multi-platform games that fit on PlayStation 2 and Xbox DVD discs occasionally saw the removal of certain features in order to fit on GameCube optical discs. Full-motion video scenes and audio were more compressed to fit on a single disc, reducing their quality. Instead of releasing a larger size optical disc Nintendo just stuck with the 1.5GB max capacity the whole way through.

More recently it was reported two years ago that Xenoblade Chronicles X was so large that it almost came on multiple discs. This wouldn't even be a factor or news if Nintendo were able to release an optical disc that increased Wii U's optical disc space from 25GB to 50GB for their own game since that optical disc format was based off Blu-Ray.

[Jaypi03]

I feel like this is largely an issue with digital collectors which makes sense, I own about 6 Switch games and some digital ones, and I haven't run out of space yet, and I only have the 32 gig internal storage and a 4 gig SD card, but then again i'm a physical collector so that helps.

That said, while I do think it's lame of Nintendo, I don't think it's too much of a big deal considering you can get a 32 gig card or more for way less than $20

[XiNatsuDragnel]

200 GB MicroSD greatness

[Double_O_Revan]

Sandisk just announced a 400GB micro card the other day!!

[chris235]

they realized that DLC makes them even more dough without really trying

[3-4-5]

Anybody making a big deal about this just doesn't comprehend the situation correctly. This is like getting mad at the DS,3DS,PSP&Vita for requiring a memory card.

Use your brain people.

[Snookies12]

Except, we KNEW you needed storage space along with the 3DS, PSP, etc. The Switch made no mention of this until now.

[InKnight7s]

Nintendo asured everyday that Switch is a console until 1 week after Zelda released.
So my brain according to Nintendo I excpect that this thing will be compared to Ps3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Ps4 and X1, not to ds, psp and vita. Its too early for external storage its been only 7 months !!

[PhoenixUp]

DS didn't require a memory card...

[zivtheawesome]

and this is exactly why i fully expcet third party devs to abandon switch ports. the publisher will almost never go through the assumption of you need extra memory out of the box. 2K will learn their lesson when lots of people will refund the game "why does the game not run on my console!!" "why do i need to buy an accessory to play your game". the only point where you need an accessory to play the game that is acceptable is when it is necessary for the gameplay for example a camera or vr. and unlike other consoles where you reach the limit after a few games which is understandable for the gamer (and yea sometimes the gamers do get angry about it, but the blame in the cases is mostly on the devs due to not compressing the game), when only one game still needs a MicroSD card to work some will find it stupid and ask for refunds.

[InKnight7s]

PASS!!
Its Nintendo why not?
I remember people here in this website complaining about ps3 320gb(or earlier releases 60gb and above) since Gt5 ate alot and already released games also complaining about early 500gb ps4 storage. But yeah 32Gb is fair and awesome because its Nintendo.

[Dalailana]

The switch memory is muliple times more advanced than that of the PS3 and PS4. You're comparing a nand storage to an hdd drive.

You know you're being willfully ignorant but this is just too much.

[InKnight7s]

Ignorant because I don't praise your favorites? Mmmm...
I am telling my opinion on Nintendo and how journalists being biased toward them and you choice to insult a person for his/her opinion. Whether my opinion is right or wrong but you are the ignorant here.
Edit: back to the topic it still a console in the market its not 3ds t. Consoles since xbox 360 release needs storage and people expect good treat and switch is damn expensive (aclaims 300 but 400 everywhere i see it) and yet offering the least in storage in the market they could easily offer 64 gb or 128gb as base storage. But nah nobody will mention that and yet Nintendo offer the highest games price in the market with the least effort.

[Dalailana]

how's this a problem? Are we back in January?

Who buys a switch without an sd card?

[CyberSentinel]

Uninformed parents for their kids.

[sk8ofmnd]

This was known moving forward that while cartridges have faster loading speeds than discs/no need for a disc drive, the cons largely outweigh the pros...

Cons:

1. Cost more to manufacture
2. Dont hold as much memory
3. Price hikes on software vs other platforms of the same game.

The fact a consumer has to spend 100s of dollars for a beefy memory card (microSDHC or microSDXC cards up to 2TB) with the 2tb costing 100-600$$ depending on the product with 64-512 gb cards ranging 50-150$$ depending on product, is a bit ridiculous when a switch consumer has already paid +299$ just to get started. With a game/pro controller your right between the pricerange of a ps4pro/xb1x... But wait... Now you need a memory card...

The switch comes stock with a whopping 32 gb of storage. This should be at least 3 times this amount.

[godashram]

People already complain about either the Switch's price, or lack of storage. Problem is, more storage would increase the price.

My concern is, if I buy a physical game, I should be able to play it from beginning to end. Sure, it could be a bug ridden mess, but the whole game should be on there. I also understand that if they were to make 64GB+ size game cards, those would cost more too.

So is there a middle ground?

Some Vita games came with low quality audio or single language sound assets on the card, with the option to download higher quality sound or a whole other language. This sounds like a better idea. Lower quality assets on the card, with the option to download higher quality assets as needed/wanted.

[Apex13]

Minor. Memory cards are cheap

[strayanalog]

So, SanDisk, an affordable 1tb or 2tb card would be wonderful right now.

[Neonridr]

Digital games sure.. those who buy physical are fine.

[Asuka]

I know this is off topic but it always bugs me when people call these "memory" cards when it is not. Memory is volatile meaning when no electrical current is applied the information stored is wiped clean. There is a reason why they are called SD cards and not SD memory. Should really be called SD storage. I know its not a big deal, but in this day and age with all the smartphones and computers and technology that is mainstream i feel people should the know basics and understand the devices they are using on a day to day basis. Would clear up sooo many misconceptions... im done.

OT:
I don't know why anyone wouldn't have a SD card with their Switch. Pretty much like i don't know why anyone wouldn't have an SD card with their smart phone (if said smart phone supported it). But i can see why this is an issue. I would be pissed if i couldn't play a game because i didn't have a card pulled in knowing that the card isn't needed for said game.

[ziggurcat]

or they could, you know... release a proper home console with a proper internal HDD...

[Xenophon_York]

As much as I adore Switch it's absolutely unacceptable for a console to come unable to store all a single game's data.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Most people have a few MicroSD cards around, plus they are pretty cheap.
https://www.newegg.com/Prod...
$13.50 for 32GB is pretty damn cheap.

[Bronxs15]

Can't believe the Nintendo fans making excuses!! Just admit it sucks! And nijtendonshould have included more internal memory! Or when u buy a game that requires more space than the internal storage it should come with a a cheap ad card.

Anyone surprised tho? This is Nintendo... this kinda crap is expected. It's why I don't bother with them anymore.