That's not on all Switch games, though. WWE 2K18 will still be $60.
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L.A Noire physical Switch version requires 14 GB download despite being 10$/€ more expensive
- Thread starter Alvis
- Start date
That's not on all Switch games, though. WWE 2K18 will still be $60.
It is accurate.
Nintendo also bundles in the licensing fee with the cart cost too. It's not just the cost of the cart itself. There is also packaging and shipping costs to factor in.
So that Nintendolife article was right?
I know it's likely that you are under an NDA to not speak about the details, but on the off chance you are not, is there an explanation for how high that price is?
EDIT: Ah you explained it a bit more
A standard PS4 can't even hold 12 AAA titles on it's hard drive, and a second controller costs $60, whereas the switch can use the joycons as two off the bat. So, you are still paying less for the amount of playability really. There are what, three games that require downloads for physical so far? (2K, LA Noire, and DOOM?). You can have every physical release minus two of the three games for no additional cost, I'd say that's far preferable to the Xbox/PS method here.
and if you feel the need to buy a carrying case, that's your personal needs, not Nintendo, nor my prerogative.
Well it's either you have to pay more or no port due to production cost being not worth it.
My point is they're not cheap. $45 for 128GB of space in an age of 60gb+ games is nothing. Even if they're releasing on 16GB carts, it won't last long. $45 on another platform would get you a 1TB HDD. That would be ideal, but we're nowhere near such a thing.
I can't give out actual numbers.
But what I can say is that Nintendo charges a certain amount for the cart. A certain amount for the license fee. A certain amount for packaging etc...
That's all bundled into one cost the publisher pays.
It's the same with Sony and Microsoft. Except blu-ray discs cost a couple of dollars whereas carts cost a lot more.
Ouch........
Yeah, good luck third parties.
We'll see what happens I guess.
Wow, did not know this.
Do we have any idea if Nintendo is making a profit off these carts?
Or digital only which I think a lot of companies will opt for as games get bigger.
Nintendo is making a profit on everything Switch related so most likely yes.
I thought it would do relatively well since there was initially more excitement from Switch owners than there was from X1/PS4 owners. With the latest news though I agree, it's going to bomb and I'm rethinking my purchase as well.
Nintendo had to go with Carts for obvious reasons, and it's not a large issue to need storage for me personally since I already had to get an SD Card. Still, I don't like the idea of not having the entire single player game on the cart. I also realize that I'm in the minority and that the majority of people are probably not going to be happy with the Third Party games that go this route. It's a shame that this is what's going to end up derailing the Third Party Support for Switch.
I recently caved on a 128gb SD card for my Switch. Since I'm mainly going physical only for big titles and only using digital for smaller indie games and games that require downloads like this and DOOM - hoping that lasts me a bit. I'll still likely pick this up assuming it ends up being a solid port, the Switch tax sucks but not a huge deal to me personally. Though I get why it angers people on principle.
Long-term I do hope Nintendo works out a solution to get the larger capacity cards out there more commonly. Otherwise within a year or so I'm going to be looking at multiple SD cards which is far from ideal.
Long-term I do hope Nintendo works out a solution to get the larger capacity cards out there more commonly. Otherwise within a year or so I'm going to be looking at multiple SD cards which is far from ideal.
Doom handles it a bit differently though. A large install isn't required if you just want to play the single player. It's just the multiplayer, which not a lot of people are into. I can see it not being worth it for them to spend the money on larger carts for a mode people don't quite want anyway.
Is there any possibility Nintendo can archive updates on their own servers and continue to distribute them in the future? Obviously the Switch servers will eventually be shut down, too, but let's say hypothetically the next system also plays Switch cartridges, could they go back into their "vault" in a case like that and redistribute the files? Or is that a legal nono
What I don't get though, is why the bug fixes are on the external patch. What's in the base game that's more important than functionality?
Bundling licensing, packaging and shipping in turns a blu ray disc upwards too. If you're gonna count all these costs as the cost of media, a 32GB cart is $10 more expensive than a disc at best. Keep in mind that the games are actually read on cart for the switch vs used to install to HDD on PS/Xbox.
I know this sounds cliche at this point but literally, Preorder Cancelled.
I was going to buy this one. Looking forward to it. I was willing to pay the $10 more for the Switch version.
But $10 more AND not being able to play the game off the cart without a massive download?
Nope.
Skipped NBA 2K and will skip WWE for the same reasons. I was going to also skip Lego City when it was rumored they going this same route.
Do we know about Skyrim? Wolf2? I know Doom will have a download for multiplayer but is the entire single player campaign confirmed to be on the cart?
These are 3 games that I WILL buy if they are contained on the cart. And 3 games I WILL NOT buy if they are not.
Perhaps I'm petty, but if I buy physical media I need all the content to be there.
Until then I am happy supporting other publishers.
I was going to buy this one. Looking forward to it. I was willing to pay the $10 more for the Switch version.
But $10 more AND not being able to play the game off the cart without a massive download?
Nope.
Skipped NBA 2K and will skip WWE for the same reasons. I was going to also skip Lego City when it was rumored they going this same route.
Do we know about Skyrim? Wolf2? I know Doom will have a download for multiplayer but is the entire single player campaign confirmed to be on the cart?
These are 3 games that I WILL buy if they are contained on the cart. And 3 games I WILL NOT buy if they are not.
Perhaps I'm petty, but if I buy physical media I need all the content to be there.
Until then I am happy supporting other publishers.
Could it be the actual usable space on the 32gb card was slightly too low for the game? 29gb seems about right for being on the edge of usable space.
Not a roadblock for the digital Switch consumer, which seems to be working awfully well for them right now - http://nintendotoday.com/nintendos-digital-sales-are-skyrocketing/
Not all AAA games are massive so your statement regarding what a PS4 can hold on a "standard" 500 GB HD is flatly incorrect. It depends on the games downloaded. (And admittedly, some are HUGE)
The worst part, for me specifically, is that I would pay $60 for a 32gb card with some poster and a cheap ost cd, or maybe a cheap keychan. This $10 more for a version which is not even better than others in any way makes hard for me wanting to support R*. I was buying physical day one... now I might wait and process this because this is very disrespectful and greedy;
How is this related to the cost or price difference exactly?
If thats right that that is just madness - you can get 32gb micro sd cards at RETAIL for far, far less. What about the idea of multi carts? Would it be something worth devs pushing for as the 8gb cards seem roughly in line with blu ray pricing or is the pricing on all the carts crazy expensive and the 16gb / 32gb not in fact outliers in terms of cost?
I wouldn't use amazon prices as an indication of what Nintendo charges to publishers.
It can be misleading.
I said in an age of 60gb games. If you play on other platforms, then you should be well aware of just how large games are. If Switch is expected to see more AAA support from third parties, then games not fitting on cartridges will be the norm.
It's going to be interesting to see how true this really is. You have to download the entire game if you purchase DOOM digitally, so it wouldn't surprise me if physical owners will have to do the same, unless the user decides to skip all post-release patches. Like, if the game receives a day one update that fixes some issues with the campaign, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the MP is a part of that patch.
No it's not blurays cost dollars to make and costs the same whether you use 50gb or 5gb. A switch cart increases significantly with each jump. How are you not understanding this?
You do realize that the company being greedy and disrespectful is Nintendo, right?
This isn't Rockstar's fault by any stretch of the imagination.
if I was going by the larger sized ones I'm talking 60gb, that's only 8 games. Hence I upped it to 12 to account smaller titles too
12 PS4 games vs. 2 Switch games? Is that really the argument here, especially considering how gimped the Switch releases are due to weaker hardware? And this is only the beginning, as we see more third-parties bring games to the Switch, are we going to continue to see this happening? I bought a Switch partially because of its convience, if I need to upgrade my hard drive after two games on top having to wait for my physical purchases to download off the system, sorry, that's no longer convienent. I'm willing to bet the market agrees with me, these games will not do well and third-parties will cool on the Switch just like they've always cooled on Nintendo for refusing to meet them halfway.
Well, Skyrim on the PS4/XBO are 20+GB...... I don't think Bethesda will go for a 32GB cartridge. They'll most likely go with a 16GB cart and the rest is a download. Maybe they can compress it to 16GB and pray they will use a 16GB cart and not cheap out and use a 8GB one.
Well publishers have to pay those costs no matter which platform they use. But when you look at the total costs side by side it's clear which costs more.
8GB carts should be fine (I use that term loosely). But we're still going to have an issue where games larger than 8GB will then need to have a certain amount of the game as a mandatory download to the SD Card.
Other option is use a 32GB cart, charge $10 more and don't have a download (or a smaller download).
Obviously the above may not be as clear cut for every situation. But there are legitimate reasons as to why these threads keep cropping up about "Switch tax" and "mandatory downloads".
Maybe wait for more AAA games like GTA V? At that time, we will need to buy 64GB SD cards just to start the game, assuming that Switch doesn't allow game files to be stored separately in SD cards and internal storage.
In my country, i can buy 2 brand new DS4 for the price of 1 Joycons at launch date.
Lets say that a publisher decides to distribute its game via off the shelves SD cards and buys lots of them. Now, they have to find a way to write the actual code on the card, and since they are cheap ones, the process is going to be very slow... per cart!
With a 32gb cart
~$1 vs ~$10 straight up production cost. If you add in licensing, shipping, and otherstuff, sure the cart jumps to $20, the blu ray also goes up for the same reasons to a similar amount (maybe smaller because shipping is less, lets say $6)
$7, $20 is a $13 difference. R* is already charging $10 more as "a switch tax". and they aren't even using the cart that could fit it all for what they pass off as $3 more cost.
They are trying to make an additional profit off the varying media rather than just have the consumer front the exact cost.
Major factor I think is that it's the first Nintendo console/handheld to have a proper eshop implementation and having fast growing userbase to go with it (unlike Wii U). Hopefully those digital consumers are the majority or at least buy a lot of third party AAA. As a Switch owner I prefer my games to be physical, 128 gb is expensive here relative to it's size, so this is a pass for me.
The whole situation is pretty bad and Nintendo is to blame for a big part of the issue. Fortunately for them this issue isn't known to anyone except core gamers.
At this rate, people should factor in a big micro SD card with their purchase if they plan to buy more than some first party games.
At this rate, people should factor in a big micro SD card with their purchase if they plan to buy more than some first party games.
SD cards aren't sold at cost, if you aren't trying to profit on the media as well as the game, it works out fairly evenly
The Switch tax is not cool, whatever is causing it. If 3rd parties are to succeed on the Switch, there should at least be a level playing field.
Greedy and disrespectful? They made a system that couldn't have worked without more expensive storage for physical games. If Rockstar want to make a game for the system and don't want to eat that extra cost that isn't Nintendo's fault because they *also* don't want to eat that extra cost. Neither wants to eat the extra cost. No one forced Nintendo to make the switch the way they did (although I think the trade off was worth it). No one forced Rockstar to port LA Noire to it either.
This situation sucks, but it's pretty obvious why things turned out this way, and the alternative is to try and put optical storage into the Switch, to have even more switch tax, or to compress the shit out of games to make them fit on smaller carts.
All have clear downsides.
The size of game downloads fluctuates radically from title to title, even among AAA offerings.
Generally speaking, you can squeeze a hell of a lot more than twelve AAA titles on a 500GB HD.
The only concession I'll make is that over the last couple of years, game downloads seem to be getting larger.
Also, the "standard" PS4 is currently 1TB for most if not all current SKU's.
Considering the extra costs associated with the cart, it's not ridiculous at all.
The practice is there because Nintendo designed a console that uses carts, a medium that's a lot more expensive than bluray discs. By boycotting 3rd party games that are effected by Nintendo's decisions, you're potentially hurting future 3rd party support.
I don't want to come across arrogant here or anything.
But you don't know the actual costs and are just throwing out random numbers at this point.
It seems to me you've already decided on a certain point of view and are no longer willing to listen to anyone else.
We are talking launch here, since the switch is still less than a year old.
Yeah, I have Halo MCC and it's 100 GB or whatever.
Still don't see how that applies to the switch unless third parties actually start releasing 60GB games on it. DOOM was 45GB on the Xbox one, it's smaller on the switch. Third parties can compress and drop quality as needed.
Edit: not saying that the large download sizes aren't a bummer just that 128GB sd card will fit at least four huge third party games from everything we've seen so far. Is there even a switch game larger than 32GB yet?
To be fair, the 128 GB's will last as long as a 1 TB HDD for most that go Physical. The Majority of games do not require any space at all, where as every PS4/X1 game requires space.
Still, there is going to be a segment of the Switch userbase that won't pick up games that are both more expensive and still require a download and that's why I think it needs to be fixed if Nintendo wants these types of games on the Switch. I'll probably pick it up, but I realize I'm in the minority and this is another hurdle for Third Party Support.