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Nintendo Switch uses Cartridges

R

Red Devil

Member
MCN said:
I'm guessing that's what the two rectangular holes on the side of the dock are.
Click to expand...

I guess, maybe there're others that weren't visible on the video? Like I don't think we didn't any of the ports of the console and like I said before the where's the NFC reader located.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
M3d10n said:
I expect it to have no more than 32GB internal (maybe 64GB, since some games will probably reach 30+GBs) but support SD cards for expanded storage. The dock has what look to be USB ports, so it will probably support HDs in docked mode (so you can have a "vault" of games at home).

The best thing is that it's very likely that physical games will be playable without need for installs, since the cartridges should be as fast as the internal memory.
Click to expand...

If the cards are fast so no need for installs, then SD cards are unlikely to keep up and could be a weak link. They might need some memory reserved as a buffer to avoid long load times.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Red Devil said:
I guess, maybe there're others that weren't visible on the video? Like I don't think we didn't any of the ports of the console and like I said before the where's the NFC reader located.
Click to expand...

The switch logo on the controller shell that you plug the joy-cons into probably
 
M

MasterOfNone

Member
dLMN8R said:
Surely, you realize that SSDs and HDDs are faster at loading than SD cards, right?
Click to expand...

That is not necessarily true, good SD cards are much much faster than the crap HDD that come with the PS4 or Xbone. SSDs are much faster, yes but on those consoles they don't perform at their full capacity because the SATA controller is slow.

These custom game carts could be on a very fast bus that could allow very quick reads directly to the RAM of the device. There would still be loading screens of course lol
 
F

Frankfurter

Member
mrklaw said:
If the cards are fast so no need for installs, then SD cards are unlikely to keep up and could be a weak link. They might need some memory reserved as a buffer to avoid long load times.
Click to expand...

But The Switch will have digital distribution, so it'll Need expandable storage (i.e. SD cards) anyway.
 
R

Ruff

Member
I thought the base station would have a disk slot that lets the game install into the memory of the tablet.

Come to think of it, how much more expensive are these than disks? it's basically a flash card for every game sold right?
 
T

tuxfool

Banned
MasterOfNone said:
That is not necessarily true, good SD cards are much much faster than the crap HDD that come with the PS4 or Xbone. SSDs are much faster, yes but on those consoles they don't perform at their full capacity because the SATA controller is slow.

These custom game carts could be on a very fast bus that could allow very quick reads directly to the RAM of the device. There would still be loading screens of course lol
Click to expand...

I should point out that the most expensive UHS SD cards top out at around 200 MB/s sequential reads. The majority average around 80 MB/s. UHS SD cards are not exactly the most cost effective media, so I doubt Nintendo (or the publishers) that ultimately pay to source the flash for the carts will be willing to eat into their margins by buying into such a premium.

A SSD on SATA2 tops out around 260 MB/s on sequential reads. A HDD will see something like 60 MB/s sequential reads.

So assuming that Nintendo will go for more cost effective Flash solutions, I don't see it being significantly faster than a regular HDD. Latencies on non-sequential reads are liable to be better but that is about it.
 
openrob

openrob

Member
Thatoneguy64 said:
Yes, but that 256GB SD card will cost you $80. The question isn't IF cards can get as big as Blu-Rays, but how big developers/Nintendo are willing to go given the cost of cards.

You can buy a spindle of 50 25GB Blu-Rays for $35.
A 16GB SD card will run you $9~ or a 32GB will run you about $12.

There's a HUGE price disparity between discs and cards. Cards are far more expensive. They can get just as big, if not bigger, than discs, but they do so at a major cost that is either eaten by the developer or passed on to the consumer. If games are staying at regular prices, you can expect them not to use very big cards; it wouldn't be prudent to give up that much income to card costs.

SD Cards have gotten cheaper. Totally. They're still not cheap enough to avoid imposing limitations on game size or cost. One of those two has to give.
Click to expand...

There was that thread that went around basically saying that because of the size, you can package more in every shipment, which has a significant impact on price.
 
C

calc84maniac

Member
Yeah, I think the major takeaway is that we could have load times as fast as (or maybe a little faster than) current consoles, *without* having to install games to internal memory. This is a very good thing.
 
I

imae

Member
Expected, but I'm glad a console is releasing that doesn't use discs. I feel optical media needs to die, and that it will over the next five or so years.
 
M

MacTag

Banned
tuxfool said:
I should point out that the most expensive UHS SD cards top out at around 200 MB/s sequential reads. The majority average around 80 MB/s. UHS SD cards are not exactly the most cost effective media, so I doubt Nintendo (or the publishers) that ultimately pay to source the flash for the carts will be willing to eat into their margins by buying into such a premium.

A SSD on SATA2 tops out around 260 MB/s on sequential reads. A HDD will see something like 60 MB/s sequential reads.

So assuming that Nintendo will go for more cost effective Flash solutions, I don't see it being significantly faster than a regular HDD. Latencies on non-sequential reads are liable to be better but that is about it.
Click to expand...
Nintendo won't use flash, they'll use a customized high speed gaming xtra rom solution from Macronix. Just like 3DS does, only on a newer/smaller node to for higher capacities (16-32GB rumored). Generally rom is cheaper and faster than flash. DS and 3DS did keep small flash pools for game saves on the card but I suspect Switch will do away with this to cut costs and simply move saves to device/expanded memory like other home consoles.
 
C

CrispyBoar

Banned
Today's game cartridges/cards are far superior to discs in almost every detail.

+Faster to no loading times; Can enable MORE details / higher-res textures due to fast loading
+More durable; Much harder to scratch and break
+Physically smaller
+More storage space
+No moving parts
+No noise, less energy consumption
+Random memory access, not dependent on physical position on disk
+No disk drive that is prone to disk read errors
+Can have saves on the game
+Possibility of building extra hardware into the games (like IR sensors in Pokemon games, tilt-sensor in Yoshi's Universal Gravitation, etc.)

Etc.

Cartridges now beat discs in every aspects aside from the cost, although the difference in cost is now much smaller than it was before. The only thing that disks got going for it is the memory per cost. That's it. And with 3D XPoint coming out later this year and starting to replace the outdated flash memory, it's only getting better.
 
M

Momentary

Banned
I'm going to call my m.2 and ssd drives cartridges now.


Anyways, I really hope they allow you to buy games digitally as well. I don't want to fool with having to keep up with tiny pieces of physical media. Hopefully there is an on board drive or an option to allow you to hook up an M.2 or SSD drive.

I will be all over this on day one if that is the case.

Can you already buy titles digitally day one on the WiiU? I'm talking about actual WiiU titles. Not their classic releases. Sorry if I sound ignorant about all of this but I haven't kept up with consoles since 2008.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
This basically rules out full-fledged ports of current-gen games. No way those cards can hold even half of a Blu-ray, or they'd have to be the most expensive games ever. Something like Skyrim is fine, as that game is only a few GB. But stuff like TW3 seems out of the question without massive downgrades. Not that I think the Switch could handle it anyway, but yeah.
 
T

topplehat

Member
Rayge said:
I'm going to call my m.2 and ssd drives cartridges now.


Anyways, I really hope they allow you to buy games digitally as well. I don't want to fool with having to keep up with tiny pieces of physical media. Hopefully there is an on board drive or an option to allow you to hook up an M.2 or SSD drive.

I will be all over this on day one if that is the case.

Can you already buy titles digitally day one on the WiiU? I'm talking about actual WiiU titles. Not their classic releases. Sorry if I sound ignorant about all of this but I haven't kept up with consoles since 2008.
Click to expand...

Oh yes, both 3DS/Wii U have full titles Day 1 on the eShop
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
CrispyBoar said:
Today's game cartridges/cards are far superior to discs in almost every detail.

+Faster to no loading times
+More durable; Much harder to scratch and break
+Physically smaller
+More storage space
+No moving parts
+No noise, less energy consumption
+Random memory access, not dependent on physical position on disk
+No disk drive that is prone to disk read errors
+Can have saves on the game
+Possibility of building extra hardware into the games (like IR sensors in Pokemon games, tilt-sensor in Yoshi's Universal Gravitation, etc.)

Etc.

Cartridges now beat discs in every aspects aside from the cost, although the difference in cost is now much smaller than it was before. The only thing that disks got going for it is the memory per cost. That's it. Optical media are an awful technology for consumer electronics, I'm glad it's slowly, but steadily going away.
Click to expand...

More storage space? These cards won't hold over 50GB (or even close to that), no way.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
MacTag said:
They might go over 50GB eventually. Right now rumors are saying 16GB to 32GB.
Click to expand...

If it ends up being 16GB, Nintendo are locking themselves out of getting ports of games that require BD-sized storage. It's the N64 all over again, in that regard. But we'll see.
 
O

orthodoxy1095

Banned
Krejlooc said:
Oye. There is so much bad information in this thread.

Lets step back - cartridges, as many are describing in this thread, dont exist anymore. Talking about the "no loading, fast access, expensive" storage mediums people keep bringing up. They work by physically addressing a eeprom, meaning tou have direct lines running from the console to every bit of digital (not analog) information on the cartridge. If I want to access, say, level 2 in mario, I point to address 0xblahblahblah and directly read it off the cart. The reason access is so fast, is because the area I am accessing is always addressed physically.

This is not how cd roms work. The reason cd roms are slow is because they are not directly addressed. Rather, you need to optically read data off the disc into a region of directly addressed physical memory called a cache to access it. The size of this cache is way, way smaller than the total size of the disc, and thus you must access all data in chunks. The time to read this data into cache is called loading time.

The way flash cards work - and ds games, and 3ds games, and assuredly switch games - is just like a cd rom. They have a small amount of cache on the card that is directly addressed that have lines running to a larger storage of flash memory that is accessed in chunks. To access the entire card, you need to load and unload in chunks, just like on a cdrom.

These do not mean "no loading."
Click to expand...
.

Please read. Thnx.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
KainXVIII said:
I wonder how this affect game prices, read access, install time (if there is install) etc..
Click to expand...

they probably expect most sales to be digital

read access: n64 cartridges still read faster than the blu ray drive on the One/PS4. but games will likely all be made to run off the internal flash speed limit anyway and the way modern cards work don't allow that type of access, so nobody is directly reading or using the cart on Switch like ROM on previous generations.
 
M

MuchoMalo

Banned
Something you guys might want to keep in mind: The main reason games are so large these days is due to lack of compression. Between the limited space and the fact that everything is much faster, it's a safe bet that Switch games will simply use more compression.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
RoadHazard said:
More storage space? These cards won't hold over 50GB (or even close to that), no way.
Click to expand...

Nintendo has investments in multiple storage companies, including the companies that improved and expanded SD.

They could easily make a card > 50GB. 3DS's upper limit right now is 8GB cards, and considering they've had a mutiplication jump in every portable generation, and not needing to be compatible with a previous generation voltage and form factor wise, I would not be surprised to see >50GB Switch gamecards within the first two years.
 
N

Nickle

Cool Facts: Game of War has been a hit since July 2013
eYyi2jy.jpg

It says "GAME CARD" on the cartridge slot, if any of you were wondering.
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
MuchoMalo said:
Something you guys might want to keep in mind: The main reason games are so large these days is due to lack of compression. Between the limited space and the fact that everything is much faster, it's a safe bet that Switch games will simply use more compression.
Click to expand...

Well, the more prudent reason why games jumped so much between last gen and this is because nobody has to fit their game on a single 360 DVD. Even with the PS3 BD around, you also had to ship on 360, AND your game had to fit within XBLA's 2GB limit if you released digitally, so that constrained digital only games as well.

Take those shackles off and game sizes jumped up.
 
8

8-Bit Sunset

Banned
I posted this in another thread but what if Nintendo manufacture their own 128~25gb cards enabling digital games to be downloaded on them?
Would keep costs down and give customers the option of digital or physical!
 
B

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Speaking of carts, did that one guy swallow a 3DS cart yet or no?

Needs to be banned if he didn't. I'm tired of these hyperbolic bets like that other guy who was ready to suck all the dicks (at least he got tagged saying he was ready to suck all the dicks available)
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Fudgepuppy said:
When I see the pictures, I'm just chuckling at the thought of people at conventions setting up tables with Mario Kart, everyone trying to sync the controllers to the correct Switch.
Click to expand...

Knowing Nintendo, the Switch probably autopairs the handles when you slide them in.
 
A

asagami_

Banned
8-Bit Sunset said:
I posted this in another thread but what if Nintendo manufacture their own 128~25gb cards enabling digital games to be downloaded on them?
Would keep costs down and give customers the option of digital or physical!
Click to expand...

lol no. Another Vita card nightmare? It's more likely the Switch will use SD or micro SD cards.
 
D

DrNeroCF

Member
RoadHazard said:
This basically rules out full-fledged ports of current-gen games. No way those cards can hold even half of a Blu-ray, or they'd have to be the most expensive games ever. Something like Skyrim is fine, as that game is only a few GB. But stuff like TW3 seems out of the question without massive downgrades. Not that I think the Switch could handle it anyway, but yeah.
Click to expand...

...how big do you think current-gen games are?
 
O

orthodoxy1095

Banned
FyreWulff said:
Nintendo has investments in multiple storage companies, including the companies that improved and expanded SD.

They could easily make a card > 50GB. 3DS's upper limit right now is 8GB cards, and considering they've had a mutiplication jump in every portable generation, and not needing to be compatible with a previous generation voltage and form factor wise, I would not be surprised to see >50GB Switch gamecards within the first two years.
Click to expand...
No more proprietary formats, thanks.
 
Davey Cakes

Davey Cakes

Member
I love 3DS-like carts for a console experience.

Means you can just fit everything in a single card case. No more lugging around CDs.

In general I think the NS will be much more convenient to use than Wii U.
 
R

Red Devil

Member
8-Bit Sunset said:
I posted this in another thread but what if Nintendo manufacture their own 128~25gb cards enabling digital games to be downloaded on them?
Would keep costs down and give customers the option of digital or physical!
Click to expand...

Didn't they do something similar in the days of the FDS selling blank diskettes in which you could download your game from kiosks?
 
Stevey

Stevey

Member
CrispyBoar said:
Today's game cartridges/cards are far superior to discs in almost every detail.

+Faster to no loading times
+More durable; Much harder to scratch and break
+Physically smaller
+More storage space
+No moving parts
+No noise, less energy consumption
+Random memory access, not dependent on physical position on disk
+No disk drive that is prone to disk read errors
+Can have saves on the game
+Possibility of building extra hardware into the games (like IR sensors in Pokemon games, tilt-sensor in Yoshi's Universal Gravitation, etc.)

Etc.

Cartridges now beat discs in every aspects aside from the cost, although the difference in cost is now much smaller than it was before. The only thing that disks got going for it is the memory per cost. That's it.
Click to expand...

Are you aware of SSDs that are superior to every point you made?
 
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