Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Overzeal
???

Of COURSE it's not gonna outclass 9th gen consoles. What would give you the impression a $400 portable console running on 20 watts or less would somehow be able to outclass $500 power consoles built like tanks the size of a desktop PC draining 500-1,000 watts from your power outlet?

It'll be 10 years at minimum before we see a portable console even remotely compete with current 9th gen consoles.

Steamdeck is a perfect illustration of what to expect. That portable costs $400 - $650 and can roughly produce graphical fidelity on par with base PS4, albeit at 720p resolution. That is what Switch 2 will be. Pretty much to the tee. A Steamdeck that's smaller and lighter, has a dock with removable controllers and kickstand, and runs Nintendo games. That's Switch 2.

But that's more than sufficient. Switch 2 will benefit from optimization which PC ports don't get, and if it truly does have DLSS its going to punch far above its weight.

@skywake
Tensor Cores mean it can do raytracing but I don't expect any games to utilize it. The cores will be for DLSS- fact they can also do RT will be more a coincidence than a purposeful addition I think. On a portable console where games walk a tightrope of performance and battery life, luxuries like raytracing are the first on the chopping block.

But like you said, it doesn't really matter. RT has been the single most overhyped and underdelivered selling point I've seen in a long time. When used for lighting it makes a huge difference, but I only have a select few games that truly benefitted from it (Cyberpunk was the most impressive imo).

Btw I think your tier list is spot on and a perfect illustration of the evolution of power in gaming hardware.

@JaxonH
Yeah, I'm not holding out for RT on Switch 2. I'm sure some titles will experiment with it, maybe the next 2D Metroid does some RT shadows or something. But it won't be Cyberpunk tier stuff

With that said, RT is definitely a big deal. It has always been the standard for rendering outside of games. It does make a difference and the fact that we can do it in real time now is just insane. But we're still kinda in the "Super FX Chip 3D" era for RT. Especially on consoles. It's still early days

1TB Lexar Micro SD $69.49
https://www.amazon.com/Lexar-Compatible-Nintendo-Switch-Smart...

512 GB Sandisk Extreme Micro SD $29.99
https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-microSDXC-Memory-Adapt...

Damn that's a deal. I still have 150gb or so left on my 2nd card. So I'm not in desperate need just yet. And considering we might be hearing of another system soon, might not even need another card.

@NintendoByNature
Do you intend to reuse your card on the next system?

In preparation for Switch 2, I was going to grab more 1.5TB micro SD cards, but then remembered Kioxia's 2TB cards are releasing next quarter. Would rather wait for those.

Switch 2 is gonna have larger file sizes. So if I filled 3 separate 1.5TB micro SD cards on Switch, it's probably gonna take 3 separate 2TB cards for Switch 2.

Then again, a LOT of 3rd party games were ported to Switch playing catch up for generations of missed support. The next system likely won't see the same blitzkrieg of ports the Switch saw. It'll get more steady, reliable support for sure, but a lot of the games worth owning which Nintendo missed over the years, they were ported to Switch. There's still a fair number but definitely less than going into the Switch era. So maybe the larger file sizes will be countered by not having 3 generations worth of 3rd party games being crammed into the lineup.

I'd really like to see Switch support hot swapping like Steamdeck. Currently, you eject the microSD with power on, and the system will error out and reboot. Being able to swap microSD out on the fly makes it a lot more convenient to split games among multiple micro SD.

Not as much an issue for me personally since I cram the top 1.5 TB of games on the main card, and rarely swap since all the games I wanna play most are on the main card. But for others who don't buy multiple micro SD of such large file size, being able to swap out several 512 GB would be a nice quality of life improvement, even if it is just saving 30 seconds. It feels like more.

Anyways, starting out with a 2TB will be non-negotiable for me. And if it happens to be BC (not counting on it since Switch was hacked, and now a flashcart), grabbing an extra 2TB card to fill with the top 50% of Switch games will also be needed. Time to start saving. They're not gonna be cheap.

Then again, the Sandisk 1.5TB were only $150 at launch, on sale for $130. Whereas the Micron 1.5TB that launched a year prior was $400. So maybe these 2TB will come in around $200. That would be nice. Could feasibly drop down to $150 by this Christmas.

@JaxonH good question. I hadn't really thought about it until now..I suppose it wouldn't be the worst idea to grab some more storage just in case I do. Are we confident the next console will take micro SD cards though?

@NintendoByNature @JaxonH
It's almost surely using microSD cards. I mean it's either that or non-user upgradable storage or they go full PS5 and have a user-upgradable SSD. The former would be a pretty bold move but I can hear the backlash already. The latter I'd be down for but.... would freak out the normies a bit

But yeah, even then we don't know how this all plays out. I mean it could be like the Switch at launch where we had 32GB of storage and on day 1 downloading BotW takes almost half the storage. Maybe they're cheap and give us 128GB and we're immediately hit with 50GB downloads. And in that case sure, microSD card up on day 1

But it could also be the other end of the scale. There's hardware accelerated file compression, maybe games are smaller on disk as a result, say a max of around 30GB. Maybe they're also fairly generous with the storage and we get 512GB built in. And if that's where we land then it'd be a good while before you'd need to get more storage even if you downloaded all the games....... will probably be somewhere in the middle of those two

My strategy with the Switch has generally been whenever I run out of storage buy a card twice as large to replace it. Because they get cheaper faster than I can go through them. And I just shuffle the cards around. Everything uses microSD cards. I think one ended up in my phone, one is in my Anbernic 35XX+, one is currently in my sister's Switch. I have a 512GB card ATM..... it's a tad over half full.... I have a feeling I won't need a new one before Switch 2....

@NintendoByNature
I'm very confident. Which means holding off for the 2TB is probably a wise move.

What comes after is the question though. MicroSD has topped out at 2TB, and speeds likely won't exceed more than 300 mbps without a new format.

MicroSD Express seemed to be that successor, but it just fell by the wayside. One company planning to make them just never did, and the other released a full size SD Express that disappointed, and no devices use either of them still, despite being announced 6 years ago.

Seems CFexpress is going to be the new format, unless a gaming console like Switch 3 adopts MicroSD Express and partners with a manufacturer to produce them to Kickstart adoption. Cause camera companies just don't seem interested.

Which, whatever. CFexpress is a bit bigger but it'll work. I think microSD Express would be better due to size but, the industry adopts what it adopts.

@skywake @JaxonH if it's a handheld hybrid, more than likely it'll use micro SD cards. Now that i really think about it, I guess I'm in no rush to grab one until we know for sure. The only thing I'd do with my current one is pass it down to my daughter for her lite. I still have a boat load of space on my current card, so it's not like the roof is caving in just yet.

@JaxonH I grabbed one of the 512GB SanDisk Extremes for my Steam Deck a few days ago. The Ultra was $5 cheaper, but it seems like the write speeds were sufficiently faster on this to justify the minor increased expense. Definitely appreciate the extra space.

@JaxonH
microSD Express would be an interesting move but also a bit unusual for Nintendo. They tend to be fairly conservative in terms of the technology they use. I'd be surprised if we get anything other than just straight up microSD card support. I think we can also rule out CFexpress for a similar reason, it had a head start over SD Express sure but.... you'd drop compatibility for regular microSD cards if you went that route

With that said, at this stage Switch is globally probably responsible for a non-trivial proportion of high capacity microSD card sales. I'm sure that'll just continue with whatever Switch 2 ends up doing. So I don't think whether or not something is an established tech is a huge issue. Whatever media Nintendo supports, assuming they don't go full Sony on it, there will eventually be availability

@skywake Yeah, they do tend to go with proven technology rather than take a risk.
Unlikely to go with any competing technologies before one or the other has proven to win out.

But they're going to have to choose something after this coming generation because micro sd SDXC simply won't cut it in the 2030's. Well, they might keep it for other purposes as mentioned, but current gen Switch 3 games at that time would be severely hampered if they were still stuck with load times from 20 years prior (in fact, likely far worse as file sizes continue to grow, and pools of assets loaded become ever larger, despite hardcap on the speed it can be read.

I say just mandate installs on SSD and provide a spare m.2 2232 NVMe slot for customers to expand if desired, like PS5 did. And if the day comes the next portable file storage format wins out, adopt it. Until then just ride the NVMe train as long as necessary.

@JaxonH
Yeah, Switch 3 I think they'll definitely need to step it up. But at the rate storage is getting cheaper and faster by then I suspect there won't be much of a discussion to have. Flash generally drops in price per GB by around 2X every 2 years. Switch launched in 2017 with 32GB of storage, pretty cheap with the storage at the time but that's what it was. Extrapolate backwards and you land at 1GB in 2007 which is basically the Wii, so it tracks. Go forwards? You land at 512GB in 2025 and 4TB in 2031

And with that increase in capacity the increase in speed just comes along for the ride. So that's not much of a concern either

Game sizes get bigger? I mean yeah, they sure do. But draw that line also. The biggest games in the 90s were across maybe 3 CDs. So lets say 2GB. The HD generation, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there were any multi-disk PS3 games. Firmly under 50GB in the 2000s. These days you see some games pushing beyond 100GB, 200GB has been cracked I believe. So we've gone 100X in around 30 years..... which isn't nothing.... but flash has got 1000X cheaper per GB in 20 years.....

One of my earlier posts on this forum was a prediction that optical media would eventually die out and be replaced by "cartridges". But that by the time we get to that era in like the mid 2020s it'd likely not matter because we would have moved pretty much entirely digital only anyways. I think I can make another prediction. I think that eventually we'll reach the point where we'll need faster external storage media for portable gaming devices as they push into the PS5 tier spec. But by the time we reach that point there will be so much internal storage included in the console most people won't bother with it

Smash spirit event is happening starting January 11th/12th with new spirits from TotK, XC3, Splatoon 3 and Pikmin 4.

Man, Bayonetta 3 was awesome. I absolutely loved it. I think it's the best of the Bayonetta games in terms of gameplay, though I hear people have their pants in a twist over the story.

Anyway, I still haven't played Astral Chain, but I've always had my eye on it. Action game people: How is it compared to the Bayonetta games?

@Ralizah
Someone did tests comparing SanDisk Ultra with Sandisk Extreme Pro in Steamdeck, which like Switch, is limited to UHS-1 speeds of 105 mbps.

Interestingly enough, here were the results for load times (not sure about write speeds, but write isn't as important since you're limited by download speed anyways and once installed, read speed is the only thing that'll be used)

Sandisk Extreme Pro

• Aperture Desk Job average launch time: 10.3s
• Aperture Desk Job average load time: 3.3s
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider average launch time: 14.3s
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider load time: 15.6s (SSD = 15.9)

Sandisk Ultra

• Aperture Desk Job average launch time: 11.1s
• Aperture Desk Job average load time: 3.4s
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider average launch time: 14.8s
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider load time: 16.3s (SSD = 15.9)

@JaxonH Yeah, I didn't hear anything about substantially faster load times.

Write speeds are more important for me since all of file transferring for emulation and whatnot is on the Micro SD card. Actual Steam games I'm actively playing I keep on the SSD.

Wait, the Extreme Pro is faster at loading SotTR than the SSD?!

Nintendo just released a new trailer for Mario vs. Donkey Kong, turns out the game has new worlds that wasn't in the GBA original.

@Grumblevolcano Ah, I was kind of hoping we'd get an NSO announcement today but another MvsDK trailer is pretty cool too (especially with how much new stuff it's adding compared to the original). Does make you wonder if they'll repeat previous years and essentially take January off in terms of NSO releases/announcements though 🤔

@Ralizah
By fractions of a second, yes. And more surprisingly the bog standard Ultra is only slower by fractions of a second. Hence why I always go with Sandisk Ultra if possible because the price is so much less than the higher tier models.

Though if I COULD get an Extreme Pro for the same price I'd definitely prefer that. Only problem there is they don't make 1.5 TB for the Extreme Pro or even the Extreme. Just the Ultra. Still, prices are coming down. I saw the 1 TB Extreme Pro is like $133. Not bad. But the 1.5 TB Ultra I just got for $130 during a sale.

Once 2 TB hits the market this spring, we should see Sandisk follow suit within a year. Probably a 2TB Ultra. But give it another year and we may see Extreme and/or Extreme Pro 2TB, as they stagger the releases to keep the money rolling in.

My end game is x3 Sandisk Extreme Pro 2TB Micro SD cards for Switch 2, and another x3 Sandisk Extreme Pro 2TB Micro SD cards for SteamDeck OLED. But that probably won't happen until the tail end of Switch 2 generation (at which point we'll all have a SteamDeck 2). And as they reveal whatever storage medium will succeed Micro SDXC and be used on the next generation of handhelds to follow, prices on those 2TB Extreme Pros should drop well under $100.

@Grumblevolcano
That's dope. 2 entirely new worlds? My excitement just increased to a notable degree. I've never played the original so it's all new to me anyways, but expanding the game's scope is awesome.

I tried Another Code demo today btw, it's actually a lot more interesting than I expected. I thought it was a visual novel or something. Didn't know it was actually 3rd person adventure and puzzle solving with a suspenseful story.

Hyped for that Prince of Persia demo tomorrow though. Gimme that