Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Adjusted for inflation, if they spend as much on storage as they did on the Wii when it launched it'll come with a 1TB NVMe SSD. If they land somewhere closer to what they spent on the 32GB Wii U SKU it'll be the same but 512GB. If they're as cheap as they were for the Switch at launch we can expect 256GB of eMMC. If they're as cheap as they were with the OLED, 3DS or 8GB Wii U SKU it'll be 128GB of eMMC. I think 128GB of eMMC is the absolute floor but... I guess we'll see

My view is that the current Switch is going to remain as the cheaper option even after this new hardware launches. Maybe as the Lite, maybe as a new SKU. And if that happens the new hardware would be a premium device. A 1TB SSD is, frankly, not impossible if that's what it ends up being. But if I was to guess I'd say 512GB SSD is very probable, a 256GB SSD is likely, less would be unnecessarily cheap

Just noticed something looking at my launch Switch. The screen at the front right has had the adhesive peeling a bit for a while but picking it up just now I can see that there's now also around a 2mm gap forming underneath the top vent. That battery be dying, not going to plug that guy in anymore

I guess I'm either ordering a replacement battery, going to the shops and picking up a new Switch or hoping that Nintendo announce something new fairly soon. I guess whatever I do I'll want to transfer stuff from this so..... probably want to get a replacement battery either way....

I'm kinda tempted to get a Lite and then just wait it out until Switch 2 launches

Besides the usual actual good games Mega Man Battle Network Collection, Star Ocean 2 Remake, Super Mario Legend of the Seven Stars remake, Persona 4 re-release and some of the Final Fantasy PIxel remaster games,

there any other actual good games to buy for the Nintendo Switch/Lite or wait til the next batch of "good" stuff in the next month?

@XandertheWise I mean... you just mentioned only remakes/remasters and mostly RPGs. What are you looking for? There have been zillions of great games lately, but if you want only RPG remakes, Another Code comes out in 2 weeks.

Went to the shops, asked what they had and there were no Lites, lots of Switch Sports bundles and only one OLED in stock. The OLED they had had some slight cosmetic damage on the box. Got the price down to $480AU

Between the new JoyCon set and second dock.... welcome to the OLED gang I guess. So now that I've brought an OLED brace yourselves for Nintendo to immediately announce Switch 2

@skywake Hopefully you have most of the year to enjoy the OLED. I really thought the same thing would happen to my Switch because it was getting worn out but then I grabbed a lite so my original Switch mostly stays docked and doesn't get as beat up anymore.

So with the flash cart releasing, I preordered one, and I ordered a lot of x200 8GB micro SD cards, x100 32GB micro SD cards, and x20 128GB micro SD cards.

Reason being, you have to eject and re-insert to toggle games. That's not gonna cut it for me wanting hundreds of games backed up. I own everything digitally and physically but this is my chance to preserve on my own terms.

So I'm putting each game on its own microSD, or each franchise set of games at least. So one 128GB might have all 7 Assassin's Creed games, a 32GB might have both Batman Arkham Asylum and City (don't care about Knight or other bad ports), a 32GB might have all Mario games, another may have all Pikmin games, etc

I bought a case that stores 90 microSD, and another that stores 58. But I think I'm just gonna get another two cases that store 90, so 270 in total, and with each storing MULTIPLE games of each franchise, and not backing up the games I don't care much about, I should be able to get the top 400-500 games backed up.

Only issue is, how to dump digital games that didn't get a physical release. Or the updates and DLC for my physical dumps. I may end up having to just download games from the internet, but use my personal dumps for the certs so they can be played online without risking ban.

Life finds a way, as the good Doctor Malcom said. Just wait, and a door will open to preserve your games.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Honestly haven't played it. Just so many games to keep up with its been crazy.

@XandertheWise
I just posted a list of like 50 or more of my favorite games on the system that were on sale for super cheap. So if you're looking for something good to buy, go read my previous post. Your taste may not align with mine exactly, but I'd be shocked and amazed if you didn't find anything in that list that intrigued your interest. Of course I'd always start by recommending Portal 1/2, Pikmin 1-4, Octopath 2, Triangle Strategy, DKC Tropical Freeze, Metroid Dread, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity, Monster Hunter Rise, Ori Blind Forest, Ori Will of the Wisps, Nier Automata, Sniper Elite 4, Zombie Army 4, Red Dead Redemption, Batman Arkham Asylum and City, Super Mario Bros Wonder, Trails From Zero (all the Trails games but this is a good one to start with and the port is far superior to the PS version), any Zelda or Xenoblade or Fire Emblem game, Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle or Sparks of Hope, Diablo 2 or 3, Bayonetta 1-3, Astral Chain, Wonderful 101, 13 Sentinels, Neon White, Olli Olli World, or heck if you like Persona, check out Persona 5 Strikers and Tactica. Great spinoffs. And Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes. Also a great spinoff.

@skywake
Oh it most certainly will now that you bought an OLED.

Thank you for your sacrifice.

I probably made a mistake when setting up the new Switch to say that I was going to continue to use the old one. I'm probably not but seemed like the right option to pick. I assume if I had said otherwise it would've given me an option to transfer my games locally rather than be limited to Australian internets for re-downloading my library. Also, unfortunately, moving across the microSD card... it wasn't a fan of that... it had me reformat my card.... so now I have to re-download my library....

As a side note, you know how there's that persistent idea that people push that the Switch's WiFi is horrible? People seem convinced it is because they do that little speedtest thing on it and it shows it's completely useless number that's not at all a reflection of the actual speed. I never really bothered to test it properly because watching stuff downloads isn't my idea of fun. Also for most of the life of the Switch I was only on 8Mbps internets anyways so it didn't matter. But now I'm downloading a couple of hundred GB so, I have time to watch it. I'm downloading at ~56Mbps. That may seem crap but, I only I pay for 50Mbps because a decade ago people thought it'd be funny to have a guy who eats raw onions as a prime minister. 56Mbps is pretty much as hard as my connection goes until at least (checks NBNco's website) late 2025

Also I guess while I'm here, some very, very, very belated impressions on the screen. I mean yep, it's an OLED screen. It's very OLED. I hope Switch 2 is also OLED because, OLED is great. More OLED. Someone earlier was saying that the screen is so much better than LG's TV, I'm not entirely convinced it is. But it's certainly nice and with 720p content at this size on OLED? I mean, there's not much to fault. But it's OLED, I know what OLED is like, was an expected upgrade. I think the thing that kinda surprised me a more is how much bigger the screen feels. I mean, I knew logically how big it was but when you boot up a game the screen just feels way bigger than it should be... it's nice....

@JaxonH ah understood. Thanks anyway!

@skywake I was thinking more along the lines of practicality rather than cost effectiveness.

As a hypothetical, Bimmy and Jimmy are participating in a test at Nintendo HQ. Two different colored NG Switches. One running TotK off an SSD and the other running off of a MicroSD card. If both were then asked if one felt any different than the other, how would Nintendo interpret that response?

@JaxonH 320 microSD cards? And here I was thinking you were winding down the Switch operation 😄

Enamored by your commitment, though that does sound rather an administrative nightmare keeping track of that little project.

@Skywake Condolences for the og Switch; 'grats for the OLED. YMMV but another potential irritation coming your way because you opted not to transfer from one Switch to the next is that of the activity log getting a bit messed up.

So Prince of Persia is native 1080p 60fps docked, 720p 60fps handheld, as Switch was lead platform... that's what I like to see.

Ppl say Switch as lead platform is bad for gamers on other systems but I say it's good. The game now hits 4k 120fps on other systems specifically because they targeted Switch. Had they targeted PS, it would be 4k 30 or 1080p 60, and Switch would be a low res mess with frames dropping to low 20s and textures not loading for several seconds, everyone loses when Switch isn't target platform.

Of course, once Switch 2 is out, making Switch 2 target platform will be a lot more viable.

@gcunit
I got x200 of the 8gb for $1/ea, and x100 of the 32gb for $2.25/ea, x20 of the 128gb for $6/ea.

I'd much prefer a flashcart with a built in menu so 1 card can store everything but at the risk of this thing getting shut down, I'm grabbing one asap.

I do wonder about digital games though. For physical dumps can be done with included tool, so I imagine updates will download to normal storage just like a real game cart. Which is fine, but I wonder if it's possible to have the entire game with all updates on the flash cart sd, and the system doesn't know the real cart had required a download or update. Either way, its a way to ensure games are preserved in perpetuity and I like that. Tiny round stickers included for each micro sd, with a legend card to write what each number is. So 1 = Mario Kart 8, 2 = Zelda BotW, 3 = Pikmin 4, etc.

I suspect they'll release a revision that has a menu or way to toggle games without ejecting but, for now, I figured I'd take the solution presented. That way all games can be dumped and not just put on sd, but backed up on PC on an external hard drive for long term storage. Don't have the energy to hack systems anymore. 3DS was the last one. Don't have the time or patience anymore. So flash cart was a great alternative solution.

@Magician
The cost of it is definitely a factor though. You only really see eMMC these days in legacy designs or in places where you know the manufacturer is trying to squeeze out every cent. Chromebooks, very cheap phones, that sort of thing. Of course it's not like Nintendo doesn't have a history of being cheap with storage. If they're as cheap as they were on the OG Switch, the OLED, the 3DS, the 8GB Wii U SKU? We're probably looking at 128GB of eMMC. So it's possible

But.... we're talking about a gaming device where storage actually matters. Not only in terms of the experience in actually using it but it's also one of the few specs that Joe Average understands. The OLED has 64GB of eMMC, they hide that fact on the box, it's deep in the spec sheet. They don't want you to be thinking about that when you're hovering over the add-to-cart button. I think the small additional cost is well and truly worth it just for the marketing value alone. If they go super cheap with storage? People aren't going to see it as a premium product worth paying $400US or $580AU for

And yes I do realise I'm saying this the day after paying $480AU for a device with 64GB of eMMC

The other bit, your main point, are people even aware of the difference between eMMC and NVMe? Or even the different varieties of NVMe drives, newer revisions of PCIe, various controllers and caches. And even if they are, do they care about load times? I mean sure, they aren't, they don't. They could easily go eMMC and nobody would really care. But the thing about eMMC is that it only exists at all because it's cheap. You don't really see any devices with eMMC with more than 128GB of storage because the only reason it's picked is to cut costs everywhere possible. 128GB these days is the minimum spec. If you're cutting costs you put in the minimum spec, that's kinda the point

I'm fairly confident that it's either 128GB of eMMC or it's a reasonably fast NVMe SSD @ 256GB or 512GB

A few more random points while I'm here. Firstly, kinda fun going through some of the older games in my library. Played a bit of Graceful Explosion Machine which is a game I probably wouldn't have bothered to get if it wasn't one of the titles there on day1. Is definitely launch window fodder, did a good job for what it was

Secondly, Animal Crossing. Obviously had to transfer my island so Animal Crossing was the first title I re-download and boot up to check it's all good. I haven't really played it for a long while. I booted it up I think once last year when I got my OLED TV, just because I was giving a few games a spin with an OLED panel. Obviously when I did that I didn't do a full run around because one of the villagers walks upto me and.....

..... oops

I do feel like this is an opportunity to clear out some games in my backlog. The three big ones left are Luigi's Mansion 3, Metroid Prime Remastered, Splatoon 2. Luigi's Mansion 3 is definitely the one I think I'm going to actually bother to get through now. Metroid Prime Remastered.... I'd rather play it with full surround. If I'm revisiting Metroid now on the OLED it'll probably be another run through Dread. Splatoon 2 I've got no chance of bothering with the single player mode

Slightly more hyped for Paper Mario TTYD now. Also really, really hoping we get Wind Waker HD now....

@skywake Would NVMe still allow physical games to function like the Switch where games that are fully on the cart can be played straight away or would you need to install the game to the memory like on PS/Xbox?

@Grumblevolcano
If a game requires the additional performance to run and if the new cartridge design doesn't allow higher speeds? Then yeah, there'd probably be some component of the game that would be put into the faster storage. But that's not too different from what happens from some games on Switch already where a lot of third party games go for a smaller cartridge and make half the game a download

It's also not really a new thing either. The Switch and Wii are pretty much the only consoles not to have some games install some component on internal storage for performance reasons. Xenoblade Chronicles X did this on Wii U, I believe BotW was the same. The Wii obviously didn't do it because it didn't really have that much storage and the Switch doesn't do it because the cartridge is about the same speed as the internal storage

But if they move from eMMC? If the bandwidth available from its storage lifts from ~2Gbps to 20Gbps, 50Gbps? I mean sure. I'm sure some developers would want that option to have some assets on the higher speed storage. Though it'll be less important than it is on PS5, BluRay tops out at something like 500Mbps with latencies in the 100s of ms. Different order of magnitude gap

Edit: something else worth noting. The leaks about the SoC Switch 2 will use included hardware acceleration for file decompression. That's not part of the standard Tegra SoC. I kinda doubt they'd bother asking specifically for that and then go super cheap on storage

Is it true that Nintendo soft confirmed the Switch 2 release date for 2026? Do we think it'll be a summer release or more of a Christmas release?

Nintendo definitely did not do that. All Nintendo actually confirmed was that there wouldn't be new hardware during the current fiscal year which means nothing before April 2024 (although announcements could potentially be before April). There was talk about the Switch life cycle which you may be referring to, but since Switch will still be supported for some time after 'Switch 2' is out, that doesn't really give us much information.

Current rumours are consistently 2024 release of new hardware, but nothing is verified. My personal guess is it will be released Fall 2024; if the February Direct doesn't mention it, it's certainly not coming out much earlier so we'll get at least a tidbit of information in early February one way or another. Some people think it will be announced in February; I guess we can wait a month and find out and assuming it is not announced we can then wait (im)patiently until summer to see if we find out then. 😝

2024 is definitely not confirmed either, but only outliers are predicting 2026. If they are right they get a cookie and the rest of us can feel silly.

@FishyS
I'm actually not expecting an announcement before the FY ends. They won't need as much lead up time before launch since its same concept. With Wii U/3DS to Switch they needed a good 5
months, but from Switch to Switch 2, I could see a June Direct reveal with a Sept release, a 90-100 day window. Or even a July/Aug reveal with a Nov release.

They'll wanna squeeze Switch sales as much as possible and once they confirm Switch 2, Switch sales will see a notable drop. So I'm thinking 90 day lead time, June announcement at the earliest, August at the latest.