SW Outlaws Dev: Game was Designed Around SSD's, Switch 2's Storage Card Not Fast Enough, Hence It's On a "Game Key Card"

Okay, so not the end of the world. But yikes.....I still don't love this. Nintendo makes it tough on devs though by providing hardware that's slow though. But was there any option that Nintendo could have went with that could have given them over 2 GBs of read access speeds while using a cart or memory stick of any kind?
The very same dev also said that if this specific game was made ground up for Switch 2 this speed wouldn't be a problem. Because it's a port that was made with SSDs in mind, that wasn't an option. Most publishers are going to choose game key cards for cost. So far this is the only one to say speed was an issue
 
Okay, so not the end of the world. But yikes.....I still don't love this. Nintendo makes it tough on devs though by providing hardware that's slow though. But was there any option that Nintendo could have went with that could have given them over 2 GBs of read access speeds while using a cart or memory stick of any kind?
No, there is not. Any other questions?
 
This key card thing is a bit of an overreaction given Nintendo is being a lot more transparent than others with their "key disks".

Plus yeah there's the capacity, speed, and manufacturing limits of the cards. It'll encourage some devs to take the cheap way out when they don't have to, and that sucks. But on the whole, the reaction has been surprising.
 
Am I missing something but could Nintendo do just release a keycard that has a digital Cdkey on it that when inserted allows the game to be downloaded digitally and the card must be installed in the system to play?

When the card isn't inserted it's not bootable, and thus allows you to resell the game/ loan to a friend etc. sell it with a case and instruction manual etc this allows physical collectors to have their box etc
 
Thought it might we worth seeing how it works on the Z1E PC handhelds, on MicroSD. Pretty sure it doesn't run on the Deck
PC handhelds since 2023 have PCIE4 SSDs that are usually rated for 7GB/s.
Now of course you 'can' always install it on something slower on PC - but then why stop there - install it on old mechanical 2.5" laptop drive to really give it a torture test. ;P

Anyway SD Micro cards are pretty bad at random reads (and limited to 100MB/s in PC slot readers even in best case) so likely pretty poor fit.
 
Due to this info, I feel less confident that current third party games will be game on cart. I really pray FF7 Remake trilogy will be game on cart but that will be most likely a game key card

If Nintendo was smart, they would do everything they could to work with SE getting this game on a Physical card. They should treat this as one of their major technical showcases and Premiere holiday 2025 titles.
 
That's not true.

They tested the slowest compatible SSD with PS5 and noted there was no perceptible difference. The load times were split second apart between them and there were minor stutters in the portal transitions but they were seen on all drives, even the internal or the super fast WD SSD.


Isn't Desth Stranding 2 the new standard of SSD loading speed? Any comparisons with that?
 
Top Bottom