Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@Grumblevolcano Is this similar to Nintendo Switch Online letting you play games offline after a regular online connection is made?

Or is this Sony revoking access to games outright if you don't use the platform?

If the latter, rip my library since that system hasn't been powered on since 2024

@Haruki_NLI You can play your digital games again if you connect to the internet.

An insider apparently claimed that the DRM thing was a bug that Sony accidentally added after fixing an exploit.

I'm gonna be that guy: Yea, probably a "mistake" in this case. But that mistake shows you what they can do with your digital library.

It's right there staring you in the face.

@JaxonH
https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-microSDXC-Nintendo-Switch-Smartp...

I'm on moble and using one hand to type this (I need my cold brew). Sorry for poor formatting.

To be fair, they could also accidentally brick your hardware if they messed up enough.

That's not an Express card so wouldn't work on Switch 2. I don't think 2TB express cards exist yet although I am not 100% certain.

That page you linked actually explicitly says it doesn't work for Switch 2; I assume there has been a lot of confusion.

@FishyS
I'm being plenty "fair" here: This is a mistake, clearly, and they're going to roll it back.

But we'd be fools to not use this as yet another example of how easy it is for these companies to control digital libraries and hardware by forcing you to connect to the internet to "check in" with them. Yes, bricking your console falls under this.

But they can't brick what doesn't connect to the internet.

Wait - is a 30 day online check for digital games a new thing?

I thought all platforms did some version of this. I remember encountering it with my Xbox Series X at least when moving house a few years ago.

@Buizel Nintendo definitely doesn't. Except for online subscription games.

@Buizel
I don't think Switch does it, but yea, I feel like Sony and MS have been doing some form of it.

@FishyS @rallydefault yeah was pretty sure Nintendo only did it as part of their NSO subscription service (with makes perfect sense). I had assumed it was an industry standard with digital games otherwise, I guess based on that one Xbox experience.

@FishyS thank you for letting me know. When I saw that yesterday, I was running on 3 hours of sleep because I was up until 2 AM playing FF7 Remake in between doing housework. I knew it was too good to be true.

@KociolekDoSyta It's on Nintendo's support page:

"microSD Express cards with a capacity of up to 2TB are supported"

https://www.nintendo.com/au/support/articles/microsd-card-and...

@Matt_Barber Since the Express standard supports much much larger I assume Nintendo will do a firmware update to allow larger sizes if and when larger express cards actually are created and become common and affordable enough... which won't be for some years.

Hi guys. I have a Switch 2, that has an 1TB mSD Express Card. Is 1TB still the largest mSD Express available (I am in the US)? Most of my games are digital, and it seems like I am quickly running out of space. Keep having to delete games and also move them to and from internal storage. On my Switch 2, I feel like I have more Switch 1 games installed than Switch 2 games. How should I go about freeing up space? What have you guys been doing? Thoughts and help appreciated

We were just discussing that above. I think 1 TB is the largest currently but it sound like 2TB are being developed and will likely be out within a couple years.

I only have a 500GB Express and I've also been having the issue that the new huge games fill it up quite quickly; I have a mixture of physical and digital but mostly I buy deep sale digital so I have a lot of those. I've just been archiving games more than I used to... no real trick, I just try to be organized and decide which large games I think I will want access to in the near future. I have been using about 2/3rd of my storage for 20 or so large games and the other third for like 200 small games and every few weeks I archive some and stick in different ones.

The fact that Switch 2 can download games much faster than Switch 1 could makes archiving and redownloading the smaller games pretty quick and easy so I don't worry too much about those ones.

@FishyS
Yeah, games do seem to be getting larger. The next part of FF7 Remake (Rebirth I think?) sounds like it will be clocking in at over 100GB, and it is in a 3 part game series! FF14 is also coming to Switch 2 this year, and on my laptop it is sitting at 116GB.

@FishyS Current SD Express cards use the SDXC standard, and I'd presume that that's where Nintendo's 2TB limit comes from.

To go above that, they'd need to adopt the SDUC standard that's only just rolling out with regular SD cards. There are 4TB cards reportedly on the way and it can go all the way up to 128TB, although presumably not for a very long time.

That could be sorted out with a firmware update, but it has to be said that Nintendo's track record when it comes to supporting new formats with firmware updates has been a bit spotty.

It was a non-issue with the Switch 1, because SDXC had enough room for growth during the lifetime of the console, but the Wii, Wii U, DSi and 3DS all had long delays when it came to adopting larger capacities, when they did it at all.

Hopefully they'll do better this time, but it's something to be aware of.

The fact that FF7 trilogy probably won't fit on Switch 2 internal storage is nuts. The far larger games combined with smaller SD Express cards is the one thing about Switch 2 that anjoys me. I suppose there likely isn't a reason to have 2 parts of the trilogy downloaded at once but it would be nice to have the option to without taking up all available space.