Topic: Do all "Switch 2 editions" (physical games including the Switch 1 version) download S2 upgrade data that's already on the cartridge?

This was discussed on the Guardians of Azuma thread, but I think it deserves it's own thread, so I'm gonna quote the relevant discussion from there:

At first I thought this was only an issue with Marvelous's games, but then Hades II did the same thing. And according to what @SuperEndriu said in that other thread, the Switch 2 physical version of Metroid Prime 4 also forces you to download a 2.1 gigabyte "S2 edition upgrade". I haven't bought any of the Switch 2 Edition physical games published by Nintendo, so now I'm wondering if those versions of BotW, TotK, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, etc. had the same issue?

It seems the only way to stop this from happening is to change the console settings so these games are not updated at all, which is not ideal at all if you still want to get later patches and content updates.

But... I was told that the games actually had the Switch 2 Edition data on the cartridge without any need to download anything other than potential future updates or DLC?

There has been conflicting reports about this kind of thing ever since the Switch 2 Editions were announced. It would honestly be really nice if Nintendo explained in-depth how they worked, because now I'm just confused. Maybe some Switch 2 Edition games need that Switch 2 Edition data downloaded and some don't? Now I want a real answer 🙁.

@Polvasti The 3rd party Switch 2 editions seem to treat the upgrade itself as a patch which those who don't own the Switch 2 edition also have to download meanwhile the "upgrade pack" is a few MB file to unlock the upgrade. The only Switch 2 edition I have is Hades 2 (because there was no Switch 1 physical) but I did notice that Sonic Racing CrossWorlds received a very large update and the eshop lists the "upgrade pack" as 3MB.

@Nep-Nep-Freak

I just checked on the eshop. Upgrade data is 3mb. Further down is a mention about fuether downloads but doesnt disclose the size.

So I would assume, the 3mb is the download key that lets you download the upgrade and pretty much makes the difference between a s1 and s2 variant.

Edit: apparently you can play s2 editions on the og switch. Maybe thats the reason behind it. If the upgrade was already in the game this might not work

The data is on the cartridge and you don't need to download anything if you change the settings so that these particular games doesn't get any updates. But like I said, it's not ideal since most people obviously want to get any patches and content updates released later. So if you have automatic updates on, the moment you put the cartridge you get a huge dowload that includes same data that's already on the cartridge. Why exactly does this happen is beyond me, but it certainly seems like something Nintendo should fix.

So this is the case with the three Switch 2 editions I have, and it seems to be the case with Prime 4 as well. (Whereas it doesn't happen with games which are S2 exclusives, i.e. the cartridge doesn't work on the Switch 1.) So now I'm wondering if it's the same with all S2 editions.

Meh. I wasn't really planning on getting any Switch 2 Editions anyway except Zelda TotK, Animal Crossing, and Legends Z-A, which will all be digital. I was looking at the physical copy of Kirby and the Forgotten Land S2E a bit, though I was already getting to the point of passing on that one anyways. Whatever.

@Polvasti Kirby, BotW, TotK and Mario Party don't have that issue
What is weird is that games like Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar still force you to download the Switch 2 Upgrade Pack data as an update even if you bought the Switch 1 version (digitally I mean, not sure if that's the case if you bought the physical version)

@Sylamp are you sure? Do you own physical copies of botw/totk? If so can you double check in the storage section of your s2 pls

Yeah, I'm guessing this is the reason for this issue: the S1 data must be partitioned from the S2 upgrade data. Though it still doesn't explain why the Switch 2 can read the S2 upgrade data from the cartridge if it's in offline mode, but if you enable updates the first update includes the same data that's already there. It must be related to how S2 updates work, which is why I think Nintendo could fix this if they wanted to.

Anyhow, I wonder now if s2 edition games have different loading times compared to playing a game from a s1 card

@SuperEndriu I did check, for BotW I only had to download the update data and in the storage section it says that it takes up 1.3 GB, much less than the upgrade pack itself
TotK update data is only 773 MB, Mario Party Jamboree is only 443 MB and Kirby is only 34 MB
Also yes, Switch 2 Editions do load faster on Switch 2 than playing the Switch 1 version on Switch 2

@Sylamp I see. Thanks for checking!

Having huge patches that are close to the size of the base game isn't that uncommon on Switch 1, for what it's worth. The Outer Worlds, for instance, has a patch that clocks in at 7.3GB for a base game that's just under 10. It was a bit broken on release, so needed extensive changes, but that's still a lot.

What's probably happening is that they've got a lot of assets packed into a relatively small number of files and, whenever any of those change, the entire file needs to be re-downloaded.

Nintendo presumably have a bit more of an in-house culture of keeping patches small, but the vast majority of developers are just far more concerned with adding features and fixing bugs, with that only being a secondary consideration.