WSJ: Nintendo Delays Rollout of 64-Gigabyte Switch Game Cards Until 2019

The good news heavily outweighs the bad

How many games even use a 32gb cart? I'm pretty sure a 64gb one would be too pricey for publishers anyway.

This is a shame, but it's fairly promising that third parties are demanding these kind of carts.

Weird news really. Espescially as US publishers does all they can to avoid 32 gb cards. I don't see anyone using a 64 gb card if they think 32 gb is too expensive.

That sucks, but Nintendo should probably focus on getting costs down for the other cartridges in the meantime (if possible).

That sucks, but it's not like they're using the 32GB one either, right? The only games that uses it is the Japan only DQH1+2 pack, which retails for 9000+ yen.

I would always take in a delay over a rushed ass broken product.

Get those 32 GB carts down in costs before we even think about 64.

Right... unless Nintendo is eating the costs, I can't see any publisher use these cards anyway. Especially since they already can cheap out by putting most of the game as a download.

Publishers don't even use 32gb card. No reason to hurry.

No one would use it anyway...

I'm scratching my head thinking about what kind of games could require as much as 64 GB of space using Switch-quality assets. BotW is 13 GB for example, the biggest game I have is Revelations 2 and it's 23 GB. The few direct PS4/X1 ports that are on the system are all under 30 GB.

SRSLY? Are 3rd parties actually demanding these expensive cards when Take Two prefers to get a smaller one and impose downloadable content to get the full game?

How would cards go down in price? More of them being printed?

GTA V for Switch will either have a massive download required to supplement a smaller cart, or else will ship on the 64 GB cart and cost $99.99.

SD cards are up to 256 GB now. I guess I'm baffled as to what technical issues Nintendo is experiencing.

Us based publishers are concerned? That strikes me as odd as none have used 32 gb cards. Maybe they hoped the introduction of 64 gb card would lower the price of the 32 gb ones.

we really didn't need three threads made at the same time.

Joseki said:

I'm scratching my head thinking about what kind of games could require as much as 64 GB of space using Switch-quality assets. BotW is 13 GB for example, the biggest game I have is Revelations 2 and it's 23 GB. The few direct PS4/X1 ports that are on the system are all under 30 GB.

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COD (for example)

Unknown Soldier said:

SD cards are up to 256 GB now. I guess I'm baffled as to what technical issues Nintendo is experiencing.

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It's a game card, not an SD card. More parts, different parts.

Zedark said:

That sucks, but it's not like they're using the 32GB one either, right? The only games that uses it is the Japan only DQH1+2 pack, which retails for 9000+ yen.

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Some games are coming close to it. Resident Evil Revelations is 26GB? And I read something about some sports game being 48GB after patching.

That's too bad - I could see some titles making their way to the Switch way easier, if extra development time doesn't has to be used for compression...

Unknown Soldier said:

SD cards are up to 256 GB now. I guess I'm baffled as to what technical issues Nintendo is experiencing.

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I may be wrong, but switch game cards are only superficially similar to SD cards. It's not writable, for example. Edit: On topic, I'm not sure this will be a big issue. Mario is 5.7 GB.

Maybe larger game cards will be tied with some kind of hardware refresh. NEW Nintendo Switch or Switch+ or whatever.

I am getting N64 flashbacks here.... but instead of MB it's GB

Who would even buy 64 gb carts? I imagine that the profit margins would be way too thin to justify going for that size.

Shiggy said:

The last sentence is just the author's thought. 3rd parties will just offer the remaining content as a download as we've already seen.

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He says some publishers told him this directly:

I wonder how long it'll take for the 32 GB cards to become very affordable in 2018. Considering this delay.

By the time they get 64GB carts, the disc drives in the next gen consoles will have been upgraded to...100GB dual layer UHD discs, so it evens out

I'm struggling to think of any game that would even need to use 64GB on the Switch.

The larger cards are too expensive, that is the only reason people aren't using 32gb cards.

Bigger download patches ahoy.

Why kind of Switch tax can we expect on those?

SinCItyAssassin said:

I wonder how long it'll take for the 32 GB cards to become very affordable in 2018. Considering this delay.

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Guess the route has been decided now.

Why even bother?

Fucking Nintendo can't even use a 32GB one for the Bayonetta collection.

$100 dollar games

Insert Kaz Hirai joke about expensive Vita memory cards

One other important point from the article regarding third party developers:

Also, the Switch's computing power trails that of rival consoles, and some outside developers said the Nintendo device might not be well-suited to data-heavy titles regardless of whether the 64-gigabyte card is available.

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Velocity:Design:Comfort said:

I may be wrong, but switch game cards are only superficially similar to SD cards. It's not writable, for example. Edit: On topic, I'm not sure this will be a big issue. Mario is 5.7 GB.

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I just used SD cards as a common example of flash memory. I doubt the Switch game cards are some incredible exotic technology. They are flash memory. That is not an expensive or poorly understood tech at this point.

Well shit, looks like developers will have to be more efficient with their memory! Oh the horror!

Wrexis said:

Some games are coming close to it. Resident Evil Revelations is 26GB? And I read something about some sports game being 48GB after patching.

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Sure, but that's not what I said. My point was that publishers have been opting to go with 16gb or even 8 gb even if they needed more space than that, and would release the rest to a download. I don't see them adoptie 64 gb when they aren't even adopting 32 gb cards.

Yeah they should first focus on reducing costs on the current ones especially the 32GB one that is not even used except by 1 game so they are not in a hurry.

I really want to see the current price list for the cartridges that are available right now (8, 16, 32 GB). Take-Two put their games on 16 GB cartridges and let players download the rest of it. L.A. Noire for example takes a 14 GB download, while a full download from the eShop is 27,4 GB. That should fit on a 32 GB cart, I suppose. :P

So even when 64 GB cartridges become available, how often will they get used? They'll probably be too expensive...

Edit: basically what Zedark is saying.

Has any game used the 32GB cart yet?

Publishers don't seem to want to use cartridges over 16gb tho

Zippo said:

Has any game used the 32GB cart yet?

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Dragon Quest Heroes I & II in Japan.

Maybe publishers hoped that releasing 64 GB carts would mean a price drop on the 32 GB ones.

Didn't even know they were planning 64GB ones. Especially in this digital era. I guess it's sort of good news some developers were considering it anyway.

"We want to charge Switch owners $20 more instead of $10 more"

Take your time, Nintendo