WSJ reporter : Standard capacity of Switch game card is around 16GB

Well this is going to be terrible if true. A lot of games easily reach, and even go past, the 50GB :/



Nintendo is still compressing most of their music down to 32Khz and 16-bit despite them having a whooping 25GB available. It's bugs me to no end that they don't even bother with CD quality in the year 2016!

Would be so cool if they sold the OST or it came bundled with games to listen to when this device is in Tablet more or something.
 
I keep on thinking Nintendo has developed some kind of insane compression technique.
Maybe, but they also don't use CGI videos. As someone said earlier, the size of games like MGR is 90% due to that. I remember people making a huge deal about Titanfall size, which had like 30GB of uncompressed audio. That's very important as well.

Well this is going to be terrible if true. A lot of games easily reach, and even go past, the 50GB :/



Nintendo is still compressing most of their music down to 32Khz and 16-bit despite them having a whooping 25GB available. It's bugs me to no end that they don't even bother with CD quality in the year 2016!

Maybe on 3DS, but doesn't Wii U support LPCM?

Really hoping 16GB is the low end. I mean, the trailer showed them playing Skyrim and the remaster is like 23GB on consoles

The PC version has compressed audio and it's 13GB.
 
Why on earth are people saying 16gb is minimum? There will be plenty ot games that only need 1/4 of that size or less and something very unusual is going on if that's no longer ecomical to produce smaller area chips at lower cost.

Don't see why smaller and larger exceptions to the standard couldn't exist.
 
Why on earth are people saying 16gb is minimum? There will be plenty ot games that only need 1/4 of that size or less and something very unusual is going on if that's no longer ecomical to produce smaller area chips at lower cost.

Don't see why smaller and larger exceptions to the standard couldn't exist.

https://twitter.com/ArcadeGirl64/status/792071571384864768

Emily Rogers said:
But again...16GB is the standard size for Game cards...Not the maximum size. No different from DS and 3DS.
 
Should be more than adequate for most games. Some will most definitely exceed that, possibly by a lot, but a whole lot of games will be far far under that as well. Especially the more traditional mobile series which likely won't see too much of a size increase despite the beefier hardware.
 
Why on earth are people saying 16gb is minimum? There will be plenty ot games that only need 1/4 of that size or less and something very unusual is going on if that's no longer ecomical to produce smaller area chips at lower cost.

Don't see why smaller and larger exceptions to the standard couldn't exist.

I imagine that it's cheaper to stick to a baseline like 16 than having to make two other ROMs like 4GB and 8GB that will quite frankly be in a vast minority when it comes to retail. Why spend the money to have production lines for two extra sizes that you don't really need at all?
 
I would bet that the smallest game card is 8GB and the biggest 64GB at or around launch. Most games would use 16GB or 32GB game cards.
 
Really hoping 16GB is the low end. I mean, the trailer showed them playing Skyrim and the remaster is like 23GB on consoles

I feel like, every handheld generation, some jrpg or similar has wound up releasing in a cartridge exceecing the size of anything that was around at the beginning of said generation. even if 16 is normal now, I'm certain something twice the size will be available simultaneously to it, and something quadruple the size or more will be available later.
 
Why on earth are people saying 16gb is minimum? There will be plenty ot games that only need 1/4 of that size or less and something very unusual is going on if that's no longer ecomical to produce smaller area chips at lower cost.

Don't see why smaller and larger exceptions to the standard couldn't exist.

I'm guessing Nintendo is ordering quite a lot of 16GB to get fairly good prices on them, rather than spreading out that order over 4GB and 8GB too. It's probably a bit more cost effective.

Maybe 4/8GB could be available at special request or something? Obviously larger sizes will be available too.
 
Why are people concerned about 3rd pert game when it's obvious they won't get 3rd party multiplatform games. Obviously there will be a few exceptions. But they showed Skyrim a 5 year old game and not something like The Witcher 3. Switch isn't on the same ball park as a PS4. It's more closer to Wii U and that's fine for a handheld. Seriously people need to let it go and stop dreaming.
 
I'm guessing Nintendo is ordering quite a lot of 16GB to get fairly good prices on them, rather than spreading out that order over 4GB and 8GB too. It's probably a bit more cost effective.

Maybe 4/8GB could be available at special request or something? Obviously larger sizes will be available too.

Yes I'd guess 16GB is most economical per byte if anything.
If you go back to what was said about 3DS games before launch, 1GB to 8GB was given. Reality was some launch games shipped on much smaller cards like 256MB, because they could.
 
People are still expecting a lot of western AAA multiplats? Let it go. It's not happening. Switch will almost certainly get 32GB cards at launch or soon after, and probably eventually 64GB cards too, but I just don't think Nintendo expects EA and them to fall in line.

The Switch right now seems to be a response to the Japanese market, and just take a look at the file sizes of modern Japanese games. They're considerably smaller than western AAA games. I don't think I've seen a single Japanese game go over maybe 25GB, and that's for the big stuff like Dark Souls 3, Metal Gear Solid V Phantom Pain (without updates), or Wii U Smash Bros. Maybe the PC versions of the FFXIII games are bigger because of the duplicate FMVs and dual audio. I think FFX and X-2 combined are 40GB. FFXV might be the first major Japanese game that by itself goes beyond 30GB for the base game. Dragon Quest Builders on PS4 isn't even a gig.

--Dragon Quest Builders (PS4): 869MB
--World of Final Fantasy (PS4): 8.8GB
--Dark Souls III (PS4): 17GB
--Transformers Devastation (PS4): 10GB
--Xenoverse 2 (PS4): 12GB

FFXIII is about 40G on PS3.
 
Why on earth are people saying 16gb is minimum? There will be plenty ot games that only need 1/4 of that size or less and something very unusual is going on if that's no longer ecomical to produce smaller area chips at lower cost.

Don't see why smaller and larger exceptions to the standard couldn't exist.

People think that standard means minimum for whatever reason. If we look at the history of Nintendo games on DS and 3DS, we can easily see that Nintendo set a standard, but many games go over and under that standard. No one really notices it because no one really cared.

The lowest on the 3DS was 128MB, but the standard size was 2GB. The max on that system was 8GB. It's pretty easy to glean that the Switch is going to be pretty similar to that.
 
Why are people concerned about 3rd pert game when it's obvious they won't get 3rd party multiplatform games. Obviously there will be a few exceptions. But they showed Skyrim a 5 year old game and not something like The Witcher 3. Switch isn't on the same ball park as a PS4. It's more closer to Wii U and that's fine for a handheld. Seriously people need to let it go and stop dreaming.

Uhhhh Skyrim special Edition came out today dude.

This, and Skyrim is also one of the most recognizable "core" games to the general public. It makes more sense than showing The Witcher 3 which will be about 2 years old (vs 5 months old) when the Switch launches.
 
Really hoping 16GB is the low end. I mean, the trailer showed them playing Skyrim and the remaster is like 23GB on consoles

Really? It's like 12GB on PC.

Just to compare for fun, Witcher 3 without expansions on PC is like 21GB or something. With expansions it's around 34GB.

FFXIII is about 40G on PS3.

I said that. And I think it's like 60 because the FMVs are in the game files twice -- once for English and Japanese audio.
 

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Added to OP.
 
People think that standard means minimum for whatever reason. If we look at the history of Nintendo games on DS and 3DS, we can easily see that Nintendo set a standard, but many games go over and under that standard. No one really notices it because no one really cared.

The lowest on the 3DS was 128MB, but the standard size was 2GB. The max on that system was 8GB. It's pretty easy to glean that the Switch is going to be pretty similar to that.

Yep. Sorry for prempting your post with a similar one! It's true that nobody really should care about the minimum, unlikely that costs will be passed on but if you're printing 100s of thousands of units they start to add up.
 
I remember there was a case with Titanfall where most of the game size was due to the audio files were uncompressed. The Xbox One version is 20gb, a reasonable amount, but the PC version is up to 50, and the explanation was that the PC version used uncompressed audio files, which beefed up the file size.

More details here : http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03...een-xbox-one-and-pc-explained-35-gb-of-audio/

Uncompressed audio using the MP3 codec can be compressed down by a ratio of 11:1 at 128kb/s, 9:1 at 160kb/s and 7:1 at 192kb/s.

So 10GB of audio files at 128kb/s would be less than 1GB compressed.

There's also a bunch of modern codecs that are both smaller and have higher quality. MP3 sucks.

Thanks to all of you.
Now I remember I heard back then about Titanfall somehow. Yeah, insane difference between PC and One XD
 
Nintendo could teach these third party devs how to compress games.

Also SKYRIM Remaster is coming to it and it says Skyrim Remaster is 23GB so they probably got a bigger card and it was no big deal.

Why are people making such a damn big fuss?
 
Of course 32 GB is too fucking expensive. It cuts into profits. Don't expect many larger games in 2017.

As the cost declines, larger games will be possible but it's not like NX is a postuler that will play GTA VI or something.

Solid state only makes sense up to a certain size in 2017 for publishers.
 
So with a cheap 128GB Micro SD + Internal Storage it could hold 10 "standard" sized games.

Which is the same as the PS4's internal storage + standard blu-ray size.
 
This doesn't surprise me and I don't consider it negative in the least. But people need to get over the idea that switch is going to be some portable XB1/PS4. It's not
 
Maybe on 3DS, but doesn't Wii U support LPCM?

LPCM is just the output method that the WiiU uses, it doesn't mean anything about the quality or format on the disc. And no, sadly it's not just on the 3DS. They're also using 32kHz at 16-bit on the WiiU most of the time. I have a bunch of direct rips and at least the following are using that quality: Super Mario 3D World, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8, Wii Sports Club, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (uses 48kHz for the animated cutscenes however) and there's loads more.

There are a couple of exceptions however, Splatoon uses 44.1kHz (16-bit) and X/Rainbow Curse/Wii Party U use 48kHz (16-bit). Which is a huge improvement. But still it's absolutely mind boggling that we're still stuck with Super Nintendo levels of audio quality twenty five years later. I understand it for the GameCube with the smaller discs, but these days?!

Would be so cool if they sold the OST or it came bundled with games to listen to when this device is in Tablet more or something.

I'd love if they'd publish more soundtracks. Now with the death of Club Nintendo they're even rarer to come by :(
 
Is data still copied multiple times on a disc to improve seek times or is everything read from console HDDs these days? I'm assuming these cards will still be faster to access than a HDD so more compression can likely be used.
 
Is data still copied multiple times on a disc to improve seek times or is everything read from console HDDs these days? I'm assuming these cards will still be faster to access than a HDD so more compression can likely be used.

On PS4/XBO it's all installed to hdd.
 
This is a non-event. Could have been expected.

Solid state is a huge step up now that it's viable again, but costs will discourage larger gsme cards inm the immediate future.

Well... you don't need more for 540p/720p games.

PS3 would like a word with you. Wii U also...
 
Most or all Wii-U games are below 16GB in size. Many modern PS4 and PC games are also below 16GB. So no problem at all, and you can always use (nearly lossless) compression, especially on multimedia files that take up most of the space anyway.

And 32, 64, 128 and 256GB remain an option, especially as flash memory will get cheaper over the years.
 
Most or all Wii-U games are below 16GB in size. Many modern PS4 and PC games are also below 16GB. So no problem at all, and you can always use (lossless) compression, especially on multimedia files that take up most of the space anyway.

And 32, 64, 128 and 256GB remain an option, especially as flash memory will get cheaper over the years.

Smash (at least with DLC) Lego City Undercover, and #FE are not and that's just first-party... Most is not the point when the largest games on any platform tend to be the most important titles...
 
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