Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@SKTTR

The question to me is why are their NBA games so big? I downloaded 2K17 on my PS4 (it was on Plus) and it took up more than 61GB on my HDD. Bigger than GTA V, Arkham Knight, Titanfall 2, everything. Yet the Madden and Pro Evolution games I've got are nowhere near that size.

That's strange logic. You don't need any of those things apart from a game.

@electrolite77 Terrible optimisation. If they put the effort into it, they could probably trim the file down by half if not more. When you're developing a game, you're always left with a bunch of unused content, content that was used for testing, that was scrapped or replaced with a new 3D model, texture, sound file, etc. Some developers just leave all of that unused content on the file, because it's the easiest way. Removing all of that will probably result in breaking the game somewhere, so it requires a lot of testing and bug fixing = time = money.

I was mentioning elsewhere that might some of these big games that try to be as close to PS4/XB1, might they need to use the cartridge and the memory card in tandem to make them run smoothly?

Xenoblade Chronicles X had "high-speed data loading packs" which were 10GB's in size and Zelda: BOTW on Wii U had a 3GB download on Wii U to help it run smoothly. The Switch version of BOTW didn't need it because it has more power. It's alright for Nintendo as their games are optimised, compressed and the games don't really look any better than what was on Wii U. Perhaps 3rd parties need both the cartridge as well as the memory card though to help their games run well. Just a theory, as well as the cartridge size being limited and expensive.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE XCX and Zelda required data packs because optical media is too slow. That's why installs are mandatory on Xbox One and PS4, to circumvent that problem altogether. The Switch's game cards should be a lot faster, so I doubt that's the problem.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE
It's a nice theory until you look at the benchmarks. With the Wii U it's pretty damn clear that the Optical disc is the slower of the three options available. It's slower than the internal storage and slower than an external HDD. With the Switch it's not so simple. It's cartridge is just as fast as a microSD card and only marginally slower than the Switch's internal storage.

To put it simply if you were to rank the options in terms of load times it would go:
1. Internal flash
2. Cartridge/MicroSD/HDD
3. Optical Disc

Given the size of previous NBA 2K games on current gen, I'm guessing what we have here is that the total size of the game is more than the size of a 32GB Switch cartridge + the 32GB internal space (both of these actual values are slightly less than 32GB) so that leaves 2K a few choices:

• Do the typical 3rd party approach of "this game isn't coming to Switch"
• Use the BotW Wii U approach of force people to download content for the game to be playable

I have doubts 64GB Switch cartridges exist (most 1st party games are rather small) so I don't think that's an option.

What are the read speed's of a Switch cartridge? It would be interesting to know. The maximum size of a Switch cartridge is 32GB. Nintendo probably would release a patch to allow bigger sizes. And what would be the next size up? I'd imagine it would be 64GB? But could they go say to 48GB? And then there's the cost, would a jump from 32GB to 64GB in terms of cost be like the jump from 128GB to 256GB in Micro SD cards? We could be waiting a long time for the cost to be mass market friendly.

Cool. Another indie teased for Switch.

SD cards and USB drives have dropped in price by a lot, so Switch's cartridges can too.

Also, from what I hear/read, Blu Ray is very slow.

@TheLZdragon What kind of differences are we talking about in storage between blu-ray and cartridge? I mean, blu-ray can far easily store a lot more, right?

Blu-ray is slow, but their production costs are negligible. Great for distributing data, the only downside is that for games you (probably) need to install the files on an internal flash or HDD. But that's fine for home consoles where storage is pretty cheap. Cards work best for handhelds where the price of storage is more expensive, with cards you don't have to install the game. On top of that, a card slot is way smaller than a disc drive. The downside of cards is that they're more expensive to manufacture, and the bigger the size of the internal storage, the more expensive they are.

@Octane I'm guessing that is what constitutes the Switch "tax" we see at times?

@UmniKnight The different Switch cartridge sizes are: 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB.

There's been a few games that have been announced with the Switch tax. Rime is the one that immediately springs to mind. The game is €5 more expensive than other platforms and it's not a big game either. On PS4 it was 4.2GB. Now you'd think on Switch with optimisation they could get it to fit on a 4GB cart. They have 6 months more to work on it than other platforms. There's so much we don't know. What's the cost of each respective cartridge size? Big 3rd party studios can probably absorb the cost of bigger cartridges, plus they may have bigger orders, further reducing the price. Whereas small indie developers can't take the hit and pass it onto the consumer.

@UmniKnight Yes and no. The ''Switch tax'' as you call it mainly applies to smaller games. A €20 on PC/PS4/Xbox One vs the same game on Switch for €30 for example. That's mainly due to smaller print runs. A smaller (often indie) game won't have the same reach as a first party Nintendo game or a big multiplat, so they can't expect to sell millions. They need to order the cards through Nintendo, and the more you buy, the cheaper they are. So let's say an indie company wants to print their game for Switch, they're looking at a small print run, but the price per card will be more expensive then what a company like EA would be paying per card, since they would order those cards in bulk (assuming they have multiple games lined up for the Switch).

The other issue is that the bigger the cards are, the more expensive they are. I don't think this is an issue for the aforementioned indie games. This is something the bigger companies have to deal with (since they are more likely to make bigger games). I'm not exactly sure how NBA2K18 handles it, but a workaround could be to ship the games on a smaller card and require the customer to download a huge patch. Effectively moving the costs of storage onto the customer. I hope that won't happen too often, because it means we're spending more on storage space. That kinda defeats the purpose of going all physical. On top of that, I've also heard the biggest cards are 32GB, plenty of games these days are bigger than that.

Of course, another option is to optimise your games and reduce the file size. Nintendo is probably the only company in the industry that does this for all their games. Their games (read: file size) are incredibly small as a result. But that takes time and resources... So yeah, don't expect every company to do this.

Even their most massive games are tiny in comparison. I wonder if developers go overboard with the size.

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OXENFREE: LAUNCH TRAILER

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@Octane

That's what I was figuring. It just seems amazing to me. I.mean, that's a Pro Patched version so you'd think the Switch version would be smaller but even then 41gb (16 card+25 internal memory) seems crazy to me.

Playing Mario + Rabbids (just beat World 1), Splatoon 2 (made it all the way to King in the Splatfest), and Monster Hunter XX (high rank hub quests online) and it's insane trying to juggle these 3 games at once. Going to get even worse with Metroid Samus Returns and Monster Hunter Stories in a couple weeks.

Think I may schedule time off for Super Mario Odyssey. And, if I knew the release date, Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Those are the last two games that I'm really excited for this year. I mean, of course there's others (Fire Emblem Warriors, Skyrim, Rocket League, DB Xenoverse, FIFA 18, NBA 2k18, Nights of Azure 2) but I don't think I would want to burn vacation for any of those. But these are the games I'll for sure be taking time off to play

Oct Mario Odyssey
Dec Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Mar '18 MH World
Aug '18 (I hope) Fire Emblem
2019 Metroid Prime 4

@Octane
That's the most logical explanation I've heard yet. I've chalked it up to the price of doing business on the platform. Nobody likes to see a premium but, honestly I'd rather pay the extra bit of money for games I want on the platform, if that's what it takes. Kinda like VR- small userbase and high expectations for production values among Sony fans means 1 hr games sold for $20, or multiplayer only games sold for $60. It kinda sucks but, I'm OK paying that money if that's what it takes to get games for the platform. For others... I guess you can always wait for a price drop (saw a ton of PSVR games for $7.99 on sale, for the people who can handle waiting).

@MegaTen Agreed on Danganronpa. A collection similar to the Japanese release would be nice (1 and 2 were together). I'm not sure if I'd double dip though. I have 1 and 2 on PC as well as vita (for vita tv and portability) but I wouldn't be opposed to seeing the games released. Although if they want to talk vanillaware into porting their back catalog (plus the vita version of muramasa) I wouldn't be upset about that.