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Nintendo is going into next gen with a lot of momentum... and still several cards to play
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"A bit costly" is putting it mildly.
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Yeah, Switch 2 is using a new storage tech that's not on the mass market yet, right? So memory card prices will be high. Hopefully the prices go down to something reasonable in a few years.
Switch 2 should greatly help speed adoption, drive up volumes and (by extension) drive down price for micro SD Express. Switch 1 has been one of the major drivers for mSD capacity increases now that so many phone lines have phased out expandable storage.
I almost suspect Switch 2 is even why Samsung brought this sudden mSDE initiative out of nowhere really. The format's been there since 2018, just no one bothered except AData a few years back with some full size SDE cards targeted at professional class cameras.
I almost suspect Switch 2 is even why Samsung brought this sudden mSDE initiative out of nowhere really. The format's been there since 2018, just no one bothered except AData a few years back with some full size SDE cards targeted at professional class cameras.
I use that specifically because while they're gonna be more expensive, I don't think they'll be as extreme as some formats of old when they were introduced. for example, a 256GB mSD card now cost $20. I wouldn't be surprised if an mSDe equivalent was $60-$70
The physical cashback is interesting, it's the thing that gives you back 0.40-0.60€ that you can redeem only once, right? It's like registering a copy of a game on a Nintendo account, Nintendo could allow costumers to redeem digital editions of their registered games in the future. It could be for free or for a small fee, for selected games and publishers or never happen, but I sure hope it will.
I'm expecting it to use micro SD express. but you can insert a micro sd card, but no telling how Drakes games would play, if at all
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Nothing I've seen confirmed what external storage medium will be used. They could just as likely stick with microSD and not permit loading games directly off external storage. But the medium for external storage has been hotly debated and some folks have firmly picked a side.
For me, with eUFS 3.1 used internally and confirmed, if they're going to inject interest in an as-of-now-underutilized external storage medium, may as well be UFS Card v3 at this point, given that it unifies the I/O (not unlike SD and eMMC kinda did fir Switch), eUFS makers can relatively easily transition to making UFS Cards (and thus are more likely to be released at a cheaper price initially than other options, albeit still more than microSD cards), it's royalty-free, it's fast (faster than Samsung’s microSD Express card anyway), it's one of the most power-efficient options... yeah, it has a lot going for it, and its downside is one of the same as something like SD Express, that adoption has been low to zero in the consumer space, so if you're starting from the exact same place from a market adoption standpoint, pick the best option for the use case IMO.
But we’re still in speculative territory for external storage as far as I can tell.
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Reminder that cost of cartridges is no longer a good argument to explain certain 3rd-party omissions. When Capcom only put half a Megaman-collection on the smallest cartridge for Switch 1, but even indie developers managed to release physical versions of their games, you know the main reason for not putting a game on Switch was not cost of medium.
Really don't want to see a repeat of the early Switch 1-days here.
Really don't want to see a repeat of the early Switch 1-days here.
What are micro DS Express?
SD cards, but now using the pcie lanes instead of connecting to (e)mmc. devices have been announced to use it and cards will come out later this year.
Samsung’s New microSD Cards Bring High Performance and Capacity for the New Era in Mobile Computing and On-Device AI
Samsung samples industry-first 256GB SD Express microSD card boasting speeds more than four times faster than current interface Samsung’s 1TB UHS-1 microSD card in mass production based on latest V-NAND technology
I dunno if I believe that all Nintendo games will suddenly see their file size quadruple vs Switch games. Increase in size in general? Most definitely. Increase by 4× as a baseline? Nah.
Anyways, the Switch launched with 32GB of storage so 256GB is still a gigantic leap even if all games were 4× larger than today.
definitely higher. dropping maskROM to go full NAND means they can multi-source and probably change security to not be reliant on one vendor. I suspect the costs were because of price parity with maskROM that was used for lower sized cards
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You hope they will sell two copies with every sale for the same price?
Are they the same price or more expensive?SD cards, but now using the pcie lanes instead of connecting to (e)mmc. devices have been announced to use it and cards will come out later this year.
Samsung’s New microSD Cards Bring High Performance and Capacity for the New Era in Mobile Computing and On-Device AI
Samsung samples industry-first 256GB SD Express microSD card boasting speeds more than four times faster than current interface Samsung’s 1TB UHS-1 microSD card in mass production based on latest V-NAND technologynews.samsung.com
Nintendo games definitely won't, but third party games exist too and there are a lot more of them than there are Nintendo games.
Anyway, no trace of the original point anymore, which was your expectation that digital unit sales have a good chance to account for 50%+ in the future. I did check if it was you who I had quoted, and yes, it was you. If you aren't interested in that anymore, then let's leave it at that.
My original point (which I should have made more clear) is that I believe the relatively limited amount of internal storage on Switch (32-64GB) is a barrier to the digital adoption of Switch software. Obviously users can expand the amount of available storage via microSD cards but that requires an extra purchase which not everyone will make.
With 256GB of internal storage for the Switch successor, that barrier is greatly lifted and allows people to build substantial digital libraries without purchasing microSD cards. There will obviously be 3rd party games like COD that don't optimize for storage space at all but they are exceptions, not rules.
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Not for recent games. I can see it becoming an option if physical backward compatibility is dropped in future hardware (not NSW2)
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They're gonna be released on the market later this year so they're probably gonna be more expensive, but just like MicroSDs they're gonna go down in price over time, with 256GB of internal memory I doubt many people will need a memory expansion within the first year/year and a half.
The interesting part about MicroSD Express is that SAMSUNG collaborated with an undisclosed partner to develop these MicroSDs and some think Nintendo might be said partner since fast storage is essential for modern games. If that were the case I wonder if Nintendo would get a small cut out of every MicroSD Express sold.
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Ah, I was mistaken. I read the specs about the internal storage and got it confused with the external storage. So the external storage is still unknown, then. Thanks for clearing that up.
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More expensive (way more) and available at limited storage capacity at first (256GB max so far). But they'll come down in price over the years.
Lots of Japanese parents want their kids to work for Nintendo, but not just for the money, survey says
Japan isn’t completely without rhetoric to the effect of “Video games are bad for kids and will rot their brains.” Kids are banned from many arcades after a certain time of night, and one prefecture actually has an official ordinance limiting how much time minors are legally allowed to spend...
japantoday.com
This article highlights some of the extremely favourable opinions the Japanese have of Nintendo in a bit more detail and how they're a more loved company than Sony too.
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Well, this will totally have repercutions in the future. While, we have already talked about this quite a few times, it's good to see some actual data to support.Lots of Japanese parents want their kids to work for Nintendo, but not just for the money, survey says
Japan isn’t completely without rhetoric to the effect of “Video games are bad for kids and will rot their brains.” Kids are banned from many arcades after a certain time of night, and one prefecture actually has an official ordinance limiting how much time minors are legally allowed to spend...
This article highlights some of the extremely favourable opinions the Japanese have of Nintendo in a bit more detail and how they're a more loved company than Sony too.
At some point, Nintendo will totally have a stranglehold regarding the talent in Japan, not only they pay more than the average, they create games that are impactful not only worldwide, but also in their home country.
Idk man, but if i could see a friend playing the next Zelda game and i get to tell him "do you see that tree? i did that... and yes, i met San Aonuma" i would totally be done with life.
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If we take Square Enix and Capcom at their prior words on the subject, the competition for new hires has been aggressive for the past 7-8 years, and I imagine a disparity in preferential employer has played a part in that even that far back, but has only gotten worse since.
And we already had data that made this apparent, because constructing a whole new 2nd building of equal or greater size to the one you currently use to house development talent in order to accommodate double the development talent while the rest of the domestic industry is bemoaning the challenges of recruiting talent is (to put it bluntly) the ultimate flex and not something you do without confidence you can get new employees in all of those new seats. This data point just makes it undeniable.
And we already had data that made this apparent, because constructing a whole new 2nd building of equal or greater size to the one you currently use to house development talent in order to accommodate double the development talent while the rest of the domestic industry is bemoaning the challenges of recruiting talent is (to put it bluntly) the ultimate flex and not something you do without confidence you can get new employees in all of those new seats. This data point just makes it undeniable.
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Yeah, it reminds me a lot of early Rooster Teeth, where their shows were so popular in the 2000s that they were able to attract talented people who foregone potentially higher-paying jobs simply because they wanted to work for them. Nintendo has essentially gone an entire generation with damn-near complete dominance over Japan, and the long term repercussions from this will be fascinating to see now that we have some sort of hard evidence. Nintendo being the 2nd most popular Japanese company that parents want their kids to work for is nuts.
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I'm really interested in how Nintendo's massive expansion will affect their software output. Will we see a lot more games, or will we see more people working on each individual title?
I would say it is a little bit of both, as Nintendo wants to make games for a lot of their IPs yet doesn’t really have the resources to do that. We see this in things like Pikmin 4 needing an outside studio or DK being MIA even though it is getting a theme park or even Metroid struggling to find a home. I would say they should probably bulk up their post-content team for the games like AC as a future proofing move. And, this should help studios like Camelot with more people should they need it.
I think that's how they're expanding already, but Nintendo is a company that doesn't like quick expansions since they believe in preserving the jobs to motivate their workers, so when they hire someone they must be pretty sure he won't be fired unless major disaster occurs.
The strategy of partnering with 3rd parties I think it's very good: 3rd parties are interested because associating their names to a Nintendo game (which is perceived as quality) is good publicity and sales (Mario&Rabbits being one of the biggest examples), and as a side effect, you have those 3rd parties working for you and not for the competition.
Nintendo can still expand relatively slow compared to what would be needed, without their output diminishing too much.
Regards!
Indeed they have been slowly & steadily expanding since the start of the Switch. The new building should represent the largest expansion for them; while helping in the areas I described. Furukawa wants more things in house but I doubt they move entirely away from 3rd party licensing or outsourcing.
Nintendo used the term ''Nintendo group'' in their acqusition notification. That is maybe a hint of their future, they will have Nintendo proper and then the Nintendo group which will be all the subsidiaries they have under them.
I think Furukawa is more open to acqusitions, but it will always be on the lower scale. No chance they acquire any publishers. Just small studios and other ventures to expand into new niches like Nintendo pictures was. This is all part of their strategy to have more and better in house capabilities. The major expansion will be internal though with building out the Nintendo EPD itself.
I think Furukawa is more open to acqusitions, but it will always be on the lower scale. No chance they acquire any publishers. Just small studios and other ventures to expand into new niches like Nintendo pictures was. This is all part of their strategy to have more and better in house capabilities. The major expansion will be internal though with building out the Nintendo EPD itself.
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As promised, second part of what's becoming a series is now up!
Switch 2 most likely won't release before 2025, how can Nintendo maintain momentum until then?
With recent reports of the Switch 2 releasing in March 2025 at the earliest (Nikkei), semi-confirmed by Nintendo's forecast (an aggressive 13.5m for Switch 1 during the FY) and communication in early May (Switch 2 news this FY but not at the June Direct), it is the time to follow up the first...
www.installbaseforum.com
I generally don't care too much about datamines, but the Paper Mario datamine was interesting this time out
Original tweet
Follow up by different user
Now, the 4K stuff is meaningless, but the codename explicitely having the "S" at the end is revealing. AFAIK Nintendo adds the platform only for cross-platform releases. The way Nintendo will address Switch content availability on Switch 2 will be an interesting topic.
I am starting to wonder, in the age of "endless games", is it beneficial to give out "free next gen patches" to old games? Could a 4K BotW (just an example) negatively impact the reception of a ad-hoc Switch 2 Zelda?
Maybe it's better to monetize such upgrades? If so, in which formula: purchase? Via NSO subscription?
I'm personally interested to see what Nintendo does.
Original tweet
Follow up by different user
Now, the 4K stuff is meaningless, but the codename explicitely having the "S" at the end is revealing. AFAIK Nintendo adds the platform only for cross-platform releases. The way Nintendo will address Switch content availability on Switch 2 will be an interesting topic.
I am starting to wonder, in the age of "endless games", is it beneficial to give out "free next gen patches" to old games? Could a 4K BotW (just an example) negatively impact the reception of a ad-hoc Switch 2 Zelda?
Maybe it's better to monetize such upgrades? If so, in which formula: purchase? Via NSO subscription?
I'm personally interested to see what Nintendo does.
Wouldn't this be because TTYD was originally a GCN game?
no, this doesn't seem to be using old code. written ground up for Switch
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Sure, but that doesn't preclude the idea that they are still calling it that because it's a remake, even if there's very little of the original in terms of assets/code etc.:
- Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake is known as Grande-S
- Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp uses Boots-S
- while I could maybe see a justification for TTYD to receive a Switch 2 SKU that could bump the framerate back up to 60fps; I really don't see any reason for MvDK or AW1+2 of all things to get Switch 2 SKUs. This seems more liekly to just refer to them being remakes, despite not necessarily having any code/asset continuity
- Couple that with the fact that recent Nintendo games that aren't remakes don't have "-S" in their codenames, even TOTK and SMBW which one would think might be in line for Switch 2 SKUs (for reference the other known codenames of the past year or so are TOTK = EX-King, SMB Wonder = Secred, E12S = Trike)
- Now ofc, not every remake uses S in the name - Link's Awakening went with Richard, while more recently Mario RPG went with Stella. On the other end of the spectrum, Mario Party Superstars is Hundred-S, despite not being a remake/port of Hundred (Mario Party: The Top 100).
Yep, the -S suffix definitely looks largely meaningless, nothing to see here.
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About 2 weeks till we should see a big Nintendo Direct. Time for everyone's final expectations/predictions?
I'm mostly curious about Metroid Prime 4. Either it's gonna be Nintendo's 'big' game for this year or it's another no show and be crossgen Switch 2-launch title imo
I'm mostly curious about Metroid Prime 4. Either it's gonna be Nintendo's 'big' game for this year or it's another no show and be crossgen Switch 2-launch title imo
