Topic: Move game from cartridge to SD card?

Hey, was wondering if there's a way I can transfer botw to my SD card.. Thanks.

If you downloaded the digital version of the game, then bought an SD card and you want to move it, simply go into Settings, data management and "Archive" the game. Then, redownload. If you have a card installed, it will automatically install to the card.

Hope this helps.

If you're asking about copying the data from the actual physical game cartridge, no there is no way.

In fact there has never been a game console in history that has ever allowed that and there probably never be a way as it will cause mass piracy and inhibit digital sales. It basically goes against the very notion of what a games console was designed to be.

@fx102A: your actually not correct. I believe both the xbox1 and PS4 both copy the game from the disk to the drive. What the OP is asking is can you copy the cartridge to the system so you don't have to swap cartridges. They would need to key the cartridge to the system so that you couldn't just borrow it install the game and then two people be able to play the same copy. I suspect they won't do that. Unfortunately that makes it a bit of a decision which to buy. Amazon prime gives 20% off for the first month of release you can always sell a cartridge game but not a digital download. That means an amazon prime member would pay a 20% premium for the convenience of not swapping cartridges.

@Bp_968 Actually with a PS4 you still need the disc to play the game once it's installed, so yes you still have to swap out discs.

@iChadman is archieve different from deleting and redownloading to SD Card?

to the OP now thats never going to happend with any console, that would be too easy for people to split the cost of the game with everyone they know and one at a time copy it to their SD Card

@tasuki: your right, I tried to say that with the second part of my post and wasn't really very clear. As a PC gamer I totally understand the OPs question though. I'm used to games being tied to an account not tied to a physical machine or physical media. And Amazon prime makes it even worse with the 20% off. I would certainly prefer to have multiple games installed on a single SD card instead of swapping cards (especially for short multiplayer games like the new Tetris game) but I'm not willing to pay 20% extra plus give up any potential resale value just for that convenience. It's unfortunate that they don't offer a discount on digital downloads for that reason. Some of the indie ports are originally Pc games and they are 30-50% more expensive on the switch, even as a digital download.

Sadly I expect the switch to be very much like apple and rarely if ever have sales on the digital store. We will see I guess. Still, it's the first console I've bought in years and have been having a blast with BoTW. I was also pleasantly surprised with Puyo puyo tetris and will probably get that to play with my Wife who also enjoyed it!

@valhallaoutcast: actually the switch could technically do it if the machine could write to the cartridges (and it might be able to, I'm not sure anyone outside Nintendo knows at this point). Unlike bluray disks the Cartidges could be written to which would allow the console to flag the cartridge with a encryption key showing that it was currently installed on a specific console. The negative to that is it would disrupt the secondary market. Think how often people would just forget and sell the game and then the new owner wouldn't be able to use it until the previous owner uninstalled it with the cartridge in his console. Some more dishonest people might do that on purpose. They could even return the game as broken and keep it installed.

Honestly I think the current setup is probably the best. If you want multiple games installed without swapping disks or carts you buy it digital. The negative to that is you lose out on resale ability. If you want to be able to resell it you buy the physical media. And with amazon offering 20% off on all physical media for new games I suspect if it's available on physical media that's how I'll be buying it.

Btw, if you haven't yet added the Japanese eshop on your switch you should. There are a couple good demos available there that we don't have (dragon quest heroes I-II)

@bp, how does a novice add the Japanese eshop? (Hope it's in English?!) Thanks in advance!

@Bp_968 I've only had the Wii U recently but from my experience there seems to be sales on the eShop quite often. Saw Zelda Skyward Sword cheaper to download than it is to go and buy a ore owned physical. The Zelda sale is over now and have you seen the price on the 2 Darksiders games? That deal is insane I got a reminder in my phone to let me know when the sale is finishing so I can grab both. It's buy the 2nd and get the 1st for 80% off or other way round. So there is sales and they can be pretty good too!

I wonder if there is a way to show your purchase for the game to the Nintendo eShop online where you can download the games or somehow just prove that you did purchase the game and be able to get a free download from Nintendo with no charge at all

This is in regard to the Nintendo switch games I just bought FIFA 2018 which is a terrific game and a couple other games for my kids for Christmas and I just feel like it's safer for able to just download them and I didn't think about that before I bought them but I wonder if there's a way that Nintendo would honor the purchase and allow us to download it from the online store

No, because then people would just buy the cartridge version at retail at a discounted price and then resell or give away the hard copy of the game. It's a lose-lose for publishers, especially in an age where customers demand more features and higher production values while paying less for software (during the lifespan of the Wii, games would generally retail for AU$100, while PS3/360 software cost up to AU$120 for standard editions of big name titles).

If you have young and/or irresponsible children, then downloading the games directly via the eShop (even though they cost more than retail) would be the better option overall (though you will need a large microSD card to store your games). At least if your Switch is broken or lost at some point, you can link your account to a new system and redownload your old software.

That would be awesome if possible. I love having physical games but for traveling purposes it would be great to be able copy some of games to SD. It could be done I suppose if games had serial numbers bound to proper (not yet existing) Nintendo Account.. but hey, we are talking Nintendo here

i dont think there could ever be an easy way to enable this kind of feature. even if you could somehow use encryption and a setting on the cartridge, people would surely find a way to overwrite that and then still use the cartridge. it would be nice if you could get a discount on digital games if you own the cartridge, but then people would buy physical, get the digital discount, then sell the cartridge while its still worth enough.

if it still used discs then this would be a big issue for me like it was on the wii u, but luckily the cartridges are small enough and sturdy enough that you can keep them together in a case, either its own case or the switch carrying case if it has it

And we're also talking about gamers that want to exploit these features as much as possible. Like others have said, they want more but want to pay less.

As the system is right now, it would be a option that is to open to misuse.

But if Nintendo had gone with the 100% digital shop version, then they could have use the game card as a quick install function and then have the user cash in a code and download a run file that locked to that console.
But the Switch would need a extra SD port to be able to support such a solution.

This would be super convenient, especially seeing as the physical game prices are often cheaper than digital. Steam / Origin / Uplay allows you to do this with certain games using the relevant CD key.
I see no real technical issues with them allowing this. Imagine Loading up the switch for travels and not having to swap out carts. we can but dream.

Its especially vexing that we cannot do this given the half and half fiasco's that have been forced upon us of late.

We can but dream.. come on Nintendo i dare you to go large.

The cartridges are already as small as they can feasibly (and sensibly) be. You just can't satisfy some people.

I don't think you can transfer a cartridge to an SD card directly. It would cause a lot of piracy issues because you could make copies of new cartridge games and give them away for free and it's illegal, so forget that idea. If you download digital games and have an SD card inserted they'll most likely download to that but your save data will be on the system's internal storage. Example, you have something like 1.2 GB left on your system's internal memory and insert a new SD card with lots of memory on it. Then you download something like BOTW digitally. You won't use up your 1.2 GB, the game will just download to the SD card. Your saves and extra data will use some of the 1.2 GB you have. That's how I think it works. Some games also have a message on the case that says you need an SD card.