Soon You'll Be Able To Give Your Switch A Whopping 512GB Of Extra Storage

I have been waiting for something like this to come along, I got the 200GB for now but I will definitely pick one of these up when I need more storage, and hopefully by then the price will be reasonable.

Nintendo Life should do their research first, with just 10mb/s write speed this is a very bad choice as a Switch memory card.

Even on phones recording above 1080p would be a issue with such slow card, most one write at least 2x times faster than this crap.

DON'T BUY THIS, wait for better ones from other brands.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2018/01/22/integral-memory-will-release-512gb-microsd-card-february/

Quote: "The card complies with the V10, Class 10, and U1 standards. In other words, it should have a minimum sequential write speed of 10MB/second, which is half the speed of more-common U3/V30 cards. It's definitely not ideal for Android's adoptable storage or a Nintendo Switch, but it should work fine for recording 1080p video."

I've already more than halfway filled my 256... I'm sure I'll need a 2TB card by the time it's all said and done for Switch... XD

@Rayquaza2510 I think this is just showing how 512GB cards are finally becoming a thing. I agree that you need to pay attention to and place importance on the speeds, but unless you are planning on going all out on the downloads I doubt anyone could justify the price when these first release. It is always best to wait until they become more common and competitive for price and performance.

@JayJ true but this specific card is pure crap for something like Switch or adoptable storage on android, it's too slow anno 2018.

The reason why this is not worth the money for anything other than storing music or pictures.

Here's hoping my 200GB card lasts a year or two...

Write speed isn't particularly important for the Switch since the only time you'd be writing to the card is while downloading a game.

take that, wallet!

@AlexOlney I did my research and so does AndroidPolice which know even more about such stuff.

Working fine and "fine" are 2 different things, loading times will be longer with such card same with write speeds.

It's like comparing a SSD to a HDD, games and applications will work fine on both but the difference with read/write speeds is a different story.

Next time warn people that such cards are slow, because people not knowing this will blame the Switch for having slow loading times while it's the card it's fault.

Still haven't got an SD card in my switch, only full game i've got downloaded is Sonic Mania so still have loads of space, all the rest is physical.

Prices for higher micro sd cards are ridiculous. I'd rather have the option to use an external hard drive as i play mostly docked.

I have a 128 GB card and it’s more than enough.. worst case scenario, I would delete an old game (keeping the save data) to make space, although I doubt I would go there

Alex is spot on! (as usual). TBH the only requirement for Switch Micro SD cards is that they are UHS-1 compatible, UHS-3 are pointless for it @Rayquaza2510

But come on--at that price! Christ, you could go out and buy full consoles for the price of the memory alone here.

I mean, seriously, if you buy a Switch with a 500GB memory card you're looking at like £800--that's utterly insane!

@AlexOlney it tops at 80mb/s read speed, but tops doesn't mean it will do that all the time.

People should stop ignoring write speeds, it's like having a 100mbps download speed but 1mbps upload, in that case it also matters.

There are already sites warning people that this card is not a good fit for adaptable storage on android or for the Switch, it surprises this site praises such crap.

I got my Switch day one and considering it's not a year old yet, I've actually been quite surprised by how close to capacity I am with my 128GB card. There have been a handful of titles that had exceptionally large storage requirements (NBA 2K17, NBA Playjam, LEGO City), but notably all of the first party releases (including Odyssey and BotW) have been a reasonable size. I don't think I'll invest in a larger card - more likely I'll get another 128 and swap between the two, or as I've done most recently, complete the larger sized games and then archive them!

@AlexOlney I don't get all the hate you guys are getting. Here is a positive comment (and I mean it):
Thanks for letting us know about it. You guys are always doing an awesome job and I am always looking for another article.

@AlexOlney "making it perfect for the Switch where fast data transfer is a real bonus."

I know a lot of people that see such text as recommendation (I'm not such person)

@AlexOlney "well I won't back down, no I won't back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down"

You good sir, seemed to be outnumbered. Stand your ground 😁

S'all constructive, it's just a minor argument, it'll be fine

@impurekind Memory is always crazy expensive when they first release larger capacity. That is why it is always best to wait, in a year or two it will be a small fraction.

@AlexOlney Sorry to see you getting all the hate here but I think it was a good read and it's nice to know about this kind of stuff. I got a 256GB card last year and it works fine but this 500GB card still seems acceptable although a little expensive 😆

@Kit quote from Nintendo website:

• supports UHS-I (Ultra High Speed Phase I)
• has a read speed of 60-95MB/s (the higher the read/write speed, the better)

Supporting something is a different story, the faster the card the faster the loading times.

This 512gb card tops at 80mb/s read and 10mb/s write speed, that doesn't mean it will hit that speed all the time.

Nintendo themself even said that UHS-I is a good start but having a better and faster card ends in better gaming experience because of faster loading times.

I don't mean UHS-I won't work, but slow loading times because I bought a cheap quality card is the last thing I would recommend.

@Rayquaza2510 @AlexOlney The only issue I see with the article is possibly the term "perfect companion"... does make it sound like the cards being promoted. Either way it's a good article & the card will at least work.

Haven't gone close to filling the internal memory #PhysicalGamerMasterRace

Without doing any research, I think traditionally there hasn't been a huge performance difference between SD cards on Nintendo consoles because their cap is usually pretty low. Might be different on the Switch but I'm betting it's not...

As for durability and all that, that's a different story, but, go with your heart, and Amazon reviews

@Rayquaza2510 @QwertyQwerty Why don't you guys give it a rest?
Don't you have another place to let all that hate out for no reason? Like Facebook, Twitter or even 9gag.

It's perfect for the switch because it is huge and allows to store a lot of games while being fast enough, end of story.

@DanteSolablood yup

@Rhaoulos
Because afterwards I see people complaining Switch has slow loading times because someone told them such card is good (I don't mean NL in this case).

It's like these people complaing iPhone is crap because it broke because they bought a 2 euro charger.... Same here, the only thing that is wrong in this article is lack of warning this will give slower loading times on switch and that it's NOT a perfect fit for the Switch.

@QwertyQwerty You're just arguing for the sake of arguing now, settle down, none of this matters. It's just a report about a 512gb memory card, the (first?) of its kind.

@QwertyQwerty You are being aggressive and borderline disrespectful. We don't need any of this. You said what you had to say, now move on.

How many body organs do you have to harvest to afford this?

Mine is 128 GB Sandisk Speed = 100.
No worry about insufficient space because my games are (Almost) Always in Physical cartridge.

@QwertyQwerty Alright you're just taking this a bit too far now. He didn't write the article and he's being shouted at by others for its contents. He's going to want to stand up for himself and his colleagues. Everyone needs to just drop it and move on with their days. If you don't like the card then fine, cool beans. Chill.

@AlexOlney Don't let it get to you, some people just love to have arguments with people on the internet. It could be pride, it could be ego, it could just be stubbornness, but I wouldn't sweat it.

@JayJ don't want to sound rude, it goes the other way around too.

I don't care who wrote the article, a lot of not techy people read this site and read that NL called this a perfect fit for the Switch.

The only reason I said something about that is because afterward people complain loading times are slow and blame the Switch for that while it's the memory card it's fault.

It's good to inform people about such big cards, but don't call it good or perfect fit if it isn't.

@AlexOlney considering you didn't wrote the article I apologize if you felt attacked by me.

It doesn't change what I said about the article, but you didn't write it so attacking you for that is unfair.

Shoot. I'm amazed at how far 64gb got me. Now that this is out, hopefully 256 drops a bit and I can grab one for the cost of a game. It is time for me to upgrade tho. I only have 10gb free inside, and about 4gb free on the card. Still, I have about 30 games on there. Can't complain.

Surely the most important rate with a memory card for a games machine is the read speed. We're not recording 4K video here. If the read speed is close to 80MB/s then it's about the same as the hard drives that come in PS4/Xbone. Sure, you can take them out and replace them with an SSD, but most people don't and don't have any issues with them.

@AlexOlney It might sound a little random considering the direction of the comments here but I'm looking forward to your next video. I like all the Labo videos lately. I'm pretty excited about it even if a lot of people aren't. I think it has a lot of potential.

@Rayquaza2510 Write speed is worthless for Consoles, what are you even talking about.

U3 benefits comes from better writing speed which I DOUBT THE switch would need more than 10mb/s anyway and even if it does, that's plenty enough.

U1 is more than enough as read speed is the important one when it comes to consoles (loading times) and both are pretty much equal (U1 vs U3)

@Dazza 80mb/s for their 512gb card, but 10mb/s write speed.

That write speed is the biggest issue, games write data too.

But myself I end this discussion, I keep in mind that when someone says their Switch is "slow" they should check if they micro sd card is good enough (and good cards aren't really much more expensive than slower ones, not in my country at least.

@Faruko I should get paid for every time people ignore write speeds (or upload speed if talking about internet connections) while they are important.

But that's not my problem, I step out of this discussion because people just refuse to listen, their and my waste of time.

(Bill Gates probably still uses a PC with 640k ram because he said nobody needs more...)

@Rayquaza2510 Games only write save data to the SD card. Save data is pretty tiny and does not require speeds of over 10MB/s.

@BionicDodo for the last time, depends per game.

goes back to play Escapist 2

The price is a bit rich for my wallet, but I'm not suprised by it really. Maybe in a few years when it drops below £80.

With that price tag, you can buy a 512 gb PS4.

@Dizzy_Boy I give it a year or 2, 128gb cards are aleady just €45 so it's matter of time before 512gb will cost that too.

@Rayquaza2510 I think the reading speed is more important than the writing speed. The writing speed only affects downloading games and saving, while reading is done all the time when playing games.

10 mb/s is a very decent speed for a card of this size. I think the small form factor sets some limitations.

10 mb/s is 600 mb/min. In an hour, that's 36GB. I don't know about you, but even my internet isn't that fast. So I really don't see this as a big problem.

@JayJ nah the price won't really drop. Once you go to micro SD cards 256GB and above the price holds.

Look @ the cost of 256GB cards today compared to a year ago. Price is round about the same

Yawn. Nothing like comment-section bickering to bore me senseless. Zzz

@kobashi100 Are you kidding? I have never seen a market where the price depreciates nearly as fast as it does for memory cards. I mean memory that was once top dollar just a few years ago is now some of the cheaper stuff you can buy, that is just how it goes.

@Rayquaza2510 sure SSD is faster than HHD but 90% of us are use to the speeds of HHD in our consoles , so by your comparison 90% of us will be fine with the speeds of this card

Geez never seen a Nintendo life comment section this... toxic. Feel like I am on ign or gamespot.

Stilling using my basic memory, don't need much with the few Nintendo games I play, Zelda, Mario, Snipperclips and Blaster Master. One or two demos. Maybe in a little but I'll probably use a few extra SD cards I have lying around. Don't care about speeds.

"... with many readers opting to pick up SanDisk's 400GB card which you can currently pick up for £219.99 / $243 from Amazon."

£200+ for an SD card sounds insane! I realise buying such a big card is a long-term investment if you're going to buy lots of Switch games but are there really so many people forking out for such huge SD cards for their Switch?

Still relying on my 256 micro SD card. Now I just feel wholly out of date. I might just pick this one up and swap 'em when its released.

@TheRealKyleHyde You're looking at one.

@PuppyToucher That is what happens when ego influences arguments on the internet.

200GB has been more than enough for me thus far. But I suspect down the road I will want to upgrade. Maybe after another year or year and a half. Unless we get some bloody massive games on the Switch over the next few months....

But that's because I buy physical releases. For those who want to download everything, I bet they will be excited for this.

Would have been nice if Nintendo had had 2 or even 3 SD card slots. Not like they take up a lot of room in the system and it's much cheaper to buy 3 200GB cards then it will be to buy the top of the line 512GB card.

Applies brain bleach eye drops into his eyes and blinks several times
Goodness, that was some sadness earlier. HurtyHurty.

Anyway! I got a 200GB in time for the Switch’s launch, and lately I’ve been surprised how much space has been used up. Looking at this new one... Well, I’ll wait for the right time to upgrade, should the moment present itself.

@TheRealKyleHyde I adore Kyle Hyde.

Man I hate the cost of these things.

@QwertyQwerty Same on the bafflement. I own em all, and it's really amazing how Nintendo and devs have condensed these titles. Only reason I'm going bigger (I archive too) is I'm greedy and want it all at once.

"... with many readers opting to pick up SanDisk's 400GB card which you can currently pick up for £219.99 / $243 from Amazon."

$243 LMAO almost the cost of the Switch itself!

@Rayquaza2510

I got the 128 GB card for my Switch and have plenty of room still. I try to get physical at all times since I use the GCU for 20% off and it limits space. I doubt I'll ever need anything else.

I still don't even have a microSD card in my Switch.
I haven't downloaded any full games yet, but I've downloaded a load of DLC, and every demo that's been available, and don't seem to have run out of room yet... and when I do I can just delete some demos.

I'd rather buy a PS4. In the meantime will stick with my 200GB card.

@AlexOlney You’re job is video games, you’ve perma-won mate! 😄

@JayJ no I am not kidding. Like I said before. Look at the price of 256GB cards today and compare to the Amazon price last year. You are not seeing much difference. Memory is cheap up to 128GB. Once you go higher the price holds!

Oh and I am talking about SanDisk BTW

There is not a chance 512GB cards will be cheap in a years time.

Have I come to myNintendoNews by mistake? Anyway I’m on 2 cheap 64gb cards and swap as and when. For someone mainly physical this is perfect. I’ll either pick up another or start archiving when I need to.

@kobashi100 as bigger cards come out the prices will come down. Time stands stil for no memory card.

I still don't have a SD card in my Switch at all. All my current games with notable size are retail without a mandatory download.
I'll wait with buying something like this till I need it. Considering the size of this card, it will likely never happen.

No, nor I, still got space on the internal Switch memory.

I think the whole point of this thread (for those who got sidelined) is actually 'hey, wow look a half terabyte Micro SD-Card, that wouldn't half rock in a Switch'.

But not at that price, give it a couple of years.

What Nintendo needs to do is stop being complete idiots and release 64 bg game cards so these publishers can start putting bigger games on the switch. 32 gb card games we have now are terrible. It's terrible when u pay 63 usd for a game that isn't even the complete game and u have to download the rest of the ghame to your switch or memory stick. Incredibly stupid of Nintendo to push back 64 gb cards untill 2019..

that super cool but i already have a 400 GB card and it's more than enough, i keep deleting old game for new once.. guys check this out, it a must have for every true gamers just follow this link> https://goo.gl/22aGuJ

Heck, 256mb cards are still too expensive for real practicality. Maybe the 512 will start bringing prices down to Earth.

@Rayquaza2510 @AlexOlney I'm not sure if the U1 card I'm using has been restricting speeds or not (don't I remember tests of load times and such where there wasn't much difference between classes and a conclusion that Nintendo restricted SD reader speed to match the gamecards more or less? )

Downloads on Switch are slow. It may be related to the card write speed. However I've recently noticed an issue with Switch (Alex, this is a good topic for an article/video, hint, hint, no extra charge.) I've noticed that at least the official Hori wired ethernet adapter seems to yield download times roughly HALF the speed of wifi. Which should NEVER be but appears to be the case across multiple Switches/docks, connected to an ethernet switch that tops out WAY above Switch's abilities over the wire for other devices. The idea that wired is SLOWER than wireless is an interesting "something is wrong" thought. And makes the whole U1/U3 thing seem silly.

@QwertyQwerty

"Well why say it's perfect for the Switch then?"

^ That's you asking him to explain something in an article he didn't participate in writing.

"Jesus Christ I didn't even write this article."

^ That's @AlexOlney stating he can't tell you why it was written that way, as again he wasn't involved in the writing.

"When you try to defend an article then bail on your colleagues/friends with "But I didn't write it!", yeah I'd say that's a character flaw"

^ That's you insulting someone who you asked an impossible question to answer.

If anyone owes someone an apology it's clearly you.

I don't mind about write speed so much . When i buy an sd card, read speed is what i actually care the most . And above all reliability

I am saying this cause i don't have a clue who integral is. Never heard of this company ever before and this concerns me. Such a high capacity sd card will cost a small fortune, and for me this is an investment. I need to know how reliable is this card before i buy 1. I 'll wait for the reviews and what samsung and sandisk have to offer in the near future.

As for the toxic comments i have to say this. Morons and 10 years old kids with anger issues infest every corner of the internet. Seriously, check ign comments section if you want to see real toxic behaviour . This is nothing

@Rayquaza2510 You're correct, the card on offer in this article is a poor value.

By contrast:

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-128GB-microSDXC-UHS-3/dp/B06XX3X9JD/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1516717171&sr=8-9&keywords=uhs-3+micro+sd+card

This card is labeled UHS-3, but it's really UHS-1/U3. In any case, performance with each individual card can vary, so they each must be tested individually. One user found they were reaching 55 MB/s read and 83 MB/s write, for example. It's not the advertised 100 MB/s "transfer speed" in practice. Thus, doing testing in addition to research is important for an accurate depiction of performance. It's also worth keeping in mind these are the sequential values, the 4K random read/write/access speeds for files transferred/swapped on the fly (i.e. important for gaming) would be a lower value.

Nevertheless, at $67 for an 128 GB microSD card with this degree of performance range, it's a better deal than the upcoming 512 GB card referred to in the article. So much for, "Take that, SanDisk!"

I have no need for that much storage but I almost want to just because I can.

These lil pissy memory cards should be super cheap... 400gb should be no more than £50

@AlexOlney @Rayquaza2510 @QwertyQwerty Just to clear some stuff up. You may know it already, but you may not. Read/Write speed is measured in MB(megabytes) per second. Internet speed is measured in Mb(megabits) per second. 1 MB = 8Mb, so 10MB = 80Mb. So for the read speed to even matter, you'd have to at least get a consistent 80Mb/s download. Even if you get more than that, I can guarentee that the Eshop has a bandwith cap on it, and I would be surprised if it was more than 80-100 Mb. Writing saves is such a small amount of data that it shouldn't even be brought into the conversation. So to summarize, getting an SD card with a write speed more than 10Mb/s really isn't helping you at all on the switch.

No thanks, 128gb is plenty for me, like to keep my games physical so they can be used as trade ins down the line.

@arpaktiko Very good point that people easily miss. Add it to my network thoughts above (even with wifi being inexplicably double the speed of the dial-up grade ethernet adapter problems (USB problem with the dock's internal port? Bad adapter? Switch just not handling USB devices well?) even wifi is dog slow. I attributed it to the wifi adapter, but maybe it's the CPU or just capped eShop throughput.) I'm REALLY pestered by that slow wired ethernet performance, and 20+ min for a 600mb download is waaaaaay slower than even this 512 U1 card can muster at 10MB.

Edit: I suspect the real cap is under 25Mb/s actual network throughput (based on the console speed tests), and under 10Mb/s for downloads (eshop side cap) at least in NoA. I'm not sure the console is capable of even APPROACHING U1 write speeds based on its current networking. Read speeds there maybe is slight advantages, but any test video I've seen it wasn't significant.

@JoyconGang One thing to keep in mind about the "download the rest of the game" issue is so far most of those examples come from 2K/Rockstar (with the exception of the Doom multiplayer download.) The other thing to remember is it had NOTHING to do with the gamecard size. They released the same partial game or even LESS of it on the PS4/X1 Blu-Rays. I.E. 2K (NBA2k, WWE, L.A. Noire) isn't putting partial games on Switch because the cards don't fit the whole game. They're putting partial games on Switch because that's how they're releasing their games on all platforms. In fact in the case of L.A. Noire, there was more content on the card than they put on the PS4 BD.

Doom was an actual card limit/cost savings by bethesda, but they wisely restricted it to multiplayer only (where most of the on disc/cart data would inevitably be replaced by downloadable patches anyway.) Rockstar's not hitting card caps. They're wading into a whole other mess of forcing digital downloads by using discs/cards as unlock keys.

Managed to pick up a 400gb one during Amazon Black Friday, was reduced to £165 so a no brainer. 512gb would be nice, but would rather wait until other manufacturers release theirs for performance/reliability comparisons.

For not much more I could get another Switch. When the prices are more reasonable, I might look into it. For the moment, I'd rather have multiple 128 or even 64GB cards. I've got those knocking around already.

Shame that Digital foundry did a video on this very subject and came to the conclusion that your best bet is MicroSD Storage size over max card speed.
https://youtu.be/vbItTEmozxw

Even the basic SD card was still faster than a game cartridge.

That is one gigantic card. I got a 256 gig one for about $50 during the xmas sales at Amazon. I buy mostly cartridges so that should hold me over, but it’s nice to see new and bigger sizes coming out.

@NEStalgia That's a good point, real world network speeds in console gaming are throttled by the companies connecting their clients. There's no way they're going to allow anyone to use an ethernet adapter with CAT6 or higher cabling into a fiber network to actually reach a 330 mbps - 1 gbps connection rate onto company servers while in networked gaming sessions or online shop access.

@Faruko @RamrodDestroyer Reading and writing save files would be sequential, no? What about 4K random speeds for actually running a game from the SD card? Those are the most important metrics for gaming on PC, not sequential. I don't know how important they are for NS, or if it handles that differently, but if the principle is somewhat similar, especially for games that need resources quickly accessed on the fly when playing from SD, then having a card with higher 4K random read/write/access couldn't hurt. (Which the card linked in the article doesn't look too promising, on that matter.)

@QwertyQwerty lol he'd be dead in prison with how fast he snitched.

@NEStalgia Also, I'm curious if you know how much 4K random read/write/access speeds would make a difference while playing from SD card instead of game card on NS. You probably already knew that 4K random access is far more important than sequential for OS functions and gaming on PC. (And of course, all of the marketing for SSD's, flash memory, the like focuses on the B1G NUMB4R5 of sequential speeds, even though in reality it's not always the most important metric.)

For example, my M.2 SSD achieves over 2gbps sequential read/write... whoopdie doo, it's only several hundred mbps 4K random read/write, and that's what determines the drive's actual performance in practice.

So, yeah... any thoughts? I've certainly noticed a positive difference on PSP playing from a Memory Stick instead of UMD, and 3DS has marginal boosts playing from SD instead of game card, but I don't have any super testing results, and I don't know about this round with NS...

"If you've already purchased a 400GB model then you might be wondering if that extra 112GB is worth upgrading for, but know this - Integral Memory's new card meets the Video Speed Class 10 (V10) standard, making it perfect for the Switch where fast data transfer is a real bonus."

Sounds like a purchase recommendation, rather than just simply reporting on it, to me... I mean, V30 is what you should be looking for with video recording at this point, and even if you were, that applies for taking videos with a phone, smart device, or digital cam/recorder, not gameplay on a Switch... This seems more like not knowing what the numbers mean, rather than straight disinformation for marketing purposes, though.

I'm from Europe and I've never seen or heard anything from Integral Europe.
I assume it's one of those many noname memorycard producers, meaning I won't buy from them because I don't know if their products are reliable.

@QwertyQwerty Your comments would have been better directed @ Darren, since he's the one listed as posting the article.

Yeah, between yesterday with the Pachter article, and now today essentially recommending an upcoming memory card that possibly won't have good operating specs behind that shiny new 512 number, instead of just waiting for release and testing it, that's two strikes in a row for Darren. (NL hasn't ever been very good with dabbling in the whole tech press offshoot article thing they've had going on for a while, though.) Let's see how tomorrow goes!

If this makes the price o the 200gb ones under 50£ bring it on, baby. I really don't understand reason to buy a big one when you can buy 2 half the capacity for less...

I Just buy 128s til both the 400 and 512 go down in price. Then when they do and I upgrade I will have some sweet 128s for mah camera.

Bonus!

I have a 200 GB card. Here's hoping I can make it last the Switch's life...

@NEStalgia I just want them to release the 64 gb cards to developers in order to get better games on cards as well as saving space for you the consumer. Btw without 64 gb cards this year that's stopping third party's to not be able to put their games on switch because alot of these games are well over 32 gigs.

@Nintendoforlife Qwerty definitely shouldn't have brought character judgement into the argument, but then again, Alex is accusing a user of spreading disinformation, when right there in the article written by one of his colleagues, it's essentially recommending a very expensive card partially based on a V10 rating... Which is not only worse than V30, it applies to video recording, not gameplay. Although, I would say the context that's based on constitutes misinformation, not disinformation. And Rayquaza rightfully picked up on that line of discrepancy, but was wrongfully shot down by Alex. So Rayquaza is owed an apology as well, honestly. Alex shouldn't have put himself out there like that.

Rather just buy another switch for that price. Archive the games on each switch, not like you can play all the games at same time

I'm a physical guru, so the largest data capacity I think I can reason myself into getting is a 128GB card.

@JoyconGang Yeah, I'd like to see it as well, though a lot of these companies wouldn't pay for it anyway. More of them are refusing to pay for DL BD for PSXBox and forcing downloads beyond 32GB. I'm not sure all these games need to be >32GB on Switch though. It won't be packing 4k assets fit for 4+GB video memory, so the overall file size can easily be smaller on Switch than the other platforms just because it doesn't need all the UHD assets. The 32GB may well be sufficient for (almost) everything. Though I'm eager for the 64GB as well.

@PlywoodStick Switch network speed isn't just throttled, it's had it's knee caps broken and toes cut off. I know some of it is whatever problem the wired ethernet has (there's seriously no reason for it to be SLOWER than wifi unless the USB controller is crazy-restricted in the dock. Supposedly the port inside the door is USB3, but launch firmware only supported 2.0. They were supposed to (and maybe have) updated to 3.0 (they have enabled a lot of features, such as the local patch transfers, that they haven't actually listed in release notes), but the ethernet speed I'm seeing is WAY below even USB 2.0 speeds. Should be able to pull 50Mb/s on USB 2.0. The speeds I see on there defy reason. It tests at 20-25 (way below the wire), but real download speeds seem to be in the single digits, even when wifi downloads 2x the speed. I almost wonder if in addition to crippled lan performance, if they deprioritize docked, wired downoads on the server side (or client side max cap) so that the wireless units hitting the servers get more bandwidth since they're on battery. I mean 20-30 minutes to download a 600MB demo, docked, wired, while the PS4 can grab several gig in that time (and PSN is infamously throttled....)....something's wrong. I'd just love to know if it's a hardware issue with the wired eth adapter (does it affect in-game performance as well? Does it introduce latency worse than wifi?), or if it's server-side throttling for downloads.

But crippled eth aside, even wifi eshop speeds are pretty low. They're throttling heavily (or Switch has a bottleneck well under 10MB/s of U1.)

Random matters but I largely don't even pay attention in this context. Flash memory always has faster RA than mechanical drives, and certainly faster than those shoddy laptop drives in the PC Twins......Even those lowly class 1 cards from a year ago were more than fast enough for the task unless you're sinking HUGE amounts of data quickly....which Switch seems amazingly incapable of I have a spare 128 U3 sitting around but I'm not sure it's worth the effort of copying my U1 to the U3 to see that .6s speed increase in loading screens, and the same ISDN speed downloads

Though even in PC I haven't adopted M.2 yet. Heck, that's obsolete now, they're onto PCIe SSDs. I still stick with the tried & true and far more economical 2.5" SATA drives. I have an M.2 slot on my newer (not that old haswell) business machine....but it sits unused.

PSP's not a fair test...UMD is a gawd-awful optical disc reader mounted in a portable cage....not exactly a reasonable benchmark against NAND. I haven't tested it myself, but I remember back in March or so youtube videos testing load times of gamecards versus what was (at the time) high speed SD, and while load times WERE faster on the fast SD, it wasn't enough to convince me to spend for it (it was more price difference then than now.)

It seems the read speed is mostly bottlenecked by actual processing speed. Much like PS4 Pro having (noticeably) faster load times than PS4 despite running the same cruddy laptop drive...the drive was clearly never the limiting factor and the people touting the speed benefits of SSDs were buying the placebo. Though the random access bump would help slightly.

@NEStalgia I say we need 64 gb cards because lets say for instance resident evil revelations. I hate that I have 1 on physicall card and revelations 2 is just a download .. it would've been better for both games to be on 1 card so that's why I said 64 gb should be out now. Btw not sure why they just don't do it old School style like ps2 and ps1 when games came with 2 or 3 or 4 cds. Why can't we just get 2 cards they both fit in the switch packages.

@JoyconGang Yeah, I gravely dislike the "download the second game free" model. FFX-X2 remastered, Bayo, RE:Rev, it's all the rage. I don't think we need 64 for RE:Rev though. They didn't use the 32gb card already available. Or Nintendo has yet to release even THAT size....

I miss the multi-disc games. Bayo 1 & 2 on WiiU was the last time I've seen that. I still have my 5-CD Riven and Klingon Academy PC boxes. Eventually they were released on a single DVD. It killed the fun. Though the cardboard sleeves they packed them in scratched the disks with frequent wear......

The PS4 and Xbox One must be quaking in their boots.

@Rayquaza2510 Write speeds do not affect loading time. From what I've read on another site the read speed are 80 megabytes/second (copied and pasted), which is still not amazing, but not too far off the Switch top read speed. (Which I think is 99 mb/s).

Not sure how the Switch does game install, but 10 mb/s should be a lot faster than the vast majority of internet connections.

@NEStalgia I know what you mean . Remember the metal gear solid boss fight with mantis? You had to switch the disk on one fight and the other u had to plug in controller 2 and use it. Nostalgia

Got 5 128GB cards for 3ds, Wii U, Switch, Phone and TV. £20 each. Doubt I would ever need more memory for any device, especially portable ones. At those prices for the really big uns, I hope they come with a lifetime guarantee. Still think its one of the most incredible feats of modern tech .... How TF can something as small as the nail on your pinky store 800 vhs movie cassettes??!!

@fluggy Internet high-five for the club that knows what a VHS is

@JoyconGang That was both classic and cruel.

Surprised NL would say this is perfect for the Switch, at that price, considering their brilliant video on a trick to using "multiple SDs card on one Switch"! The vid went something like "Hallo lurvy ppl, here's a hack to using two SD cards in one Switch!. You plug one card in, use it, then take it out and then plug in a different card." lol, That was clickbait at it's finest. But also a better cheaper solution to backing up games you don't want anymore (and don't want to merely archive).

Anyways I think the V10 read speed of this won't cause annnnny delay when playing games off it. That's pretty standard, there's something a little faster (forget the name) but it wouldn't have any noticeable effect on the Switch. I wish there was a comparison video of loading screens and such off a game saved to the Switch hard drive versus a V10 SD, though.

I nabbed a 200gb for 50$ on BLK Fri day. I'm good as I also mostly buy physical carts.

@NEStalgia For what it's worth:

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/PS4-Pro-SSD-Upgrade-Does-SATA-III-Make-Difference/Testing-Methodology-Results

SSD's don't have as drastic of performance improvements on PS4/Pro compared to PC, especially on more demanding titles like The Witcher 3, where processing power is the bottleneck moreso than the drive. Nevertheless, switching out the basic crap HDD for even a merely decent SSD can make a significant difference in certain titles, such as GTA V. So using an SSD for HD consoles is demonstrably better than a placebo in multiple cases.

By M.2 SSD, I meant M.2 PCIe X4 NVMe, not M.2 SATA, my bad. I'm just used to "M.2" meaning "NVMe" since that's typically what people are looking for; whereas M.2 SATA offers no tangible benefits for transfer speeds over SATA III, since it's still bound to the SATA controller.

Using CrystalDiskMark on my Samsung 960 EVO NVMe drive, I get 1698 MB/s (or almost 1.7 GB/s) sequential read and 1333 MB/s (or over 1.3 GB/s) sequential write. (And even 3169 MB/s sequential Q32T1 read, OOOH! ) Compare that to the advertised speeds on these microSD cards... But that's somewhat for naught, considering Random 4K read is 41.84 MB/s and Random 4K write is 114 MB/s. (Not 4K Q32T1.) Those Random 4K values are the truly important part of an NVMe drive's value proposition. Compare that to most HDD's, which don't necessarily even break 0.5 MB/s Random 4K read or 1 MB/s Random 4K write... Or my Samsung 830 SATA SSD, which has 22.96 MB/s Random 4K read and 73.89 MB/s Random 4K write. Not quite twice the performance of modern SATA SSD's for general OS use and gaming, but hey, still improved performance.

Good to know about network transfer speeds... Will be interesting to see what is found out over time.

I would be interested to see if utilizing an SD card for more demanding titles (like Xenoblade 2) makes more of a difference vs. game card than in others. The difference is probably negligible in many titles, though.

@AlexOlney @Rayquaza2510 Jerry! Jerry!

I wonder how long Nintendo is going to make us wait for a way to save data in a external HDD.

As a side note, I own a 64 GB SD card since I want most of my games physical. It's quite annoying to change cards, yes, but at least I have the extra space for games that I really want to have available at any time, and well, besides that, I can share my physical games too.

@PlywoodStick Since the Pro shows marked improvment in load speeds over the stock 4 without a faster drive, I really doubt the SSD upgrade would help the stock 4. Pro maybe...it could be limited by the drive now. But stock 4?

"NVMe at obscene prices, that's what everyone wants in PC!" Meanwhile businesses still load up on mechanical HDDs for cheap. Sheesh, you're a genuine "enthusiast".....the worst kind of PC gamer. I was you, once.

Yeah it depends probably on where the bottleneck is. I/O? CPU? Memory? Or is the machine physically capable of more but thermal management prevents it out of either necessity or caution?

@NEStalgia lol. How do u feel about all these ports? I kinda mind and don't mind becaus alot of these games I never got to play but on the other hand is rather have exclusives. Bring back classics and reinvent it from the ground up from scratch with our tech from 2018. I never played skyrim and and I still haven't purchased it because it's a 10 year old game for 63 dollars which imo is absurd. I know this year we will see it on sale for like 40 bucks. I've spent so much money on games it has costed more than the system itself. I have 17 games which none have been beaten.

I have 320gb, thats enough for me.

I already use a 512GB memory card on my Switch; got it for $39.99 at USADiscount. It also came with a free 64GB memory card. After formatting it, it works perfectly.

Last time I checked the price went up to $59.99 but that's a lot cheaper than other brands.

I'll stick with my 200 for now no thank you. Haven't even reached a quarter of that yet so once it maxes out (definitely not anytime soon) then I'll consider jumping in, and by then the price must be low.

@JoyconGang Right now my wallet could use the rest from new-release prices, so actually being able to shrug off a Switch release is kind of comforting And these were great games that too few bought due to the WiiU, so it's a net gain for good games to not get lost (cough Mario Sunshine cough) But it's also a little off-putting that Switch is a copy-paste of most of WiiU, if you're a WiiU owner. It gives them a monthly big game, but it feels like a retread of 2012 for the crowd that's been here the whole time.

Plus I'm stocking up on cheap old games for PS4 with their sales so my backlog is growing far too much. Switch is where my pre-order money still goes though! Kirby day 1

@NEStalgia last Kirby I played was on super Nintendo as a kid so I'm in for kirb. I'm in on donkey Kong becaus dive been dying for Nintendo to make a completely new donkey Kong maybe 3d .. also I've been hoping and praying we get old school Nintendo GameCube games. I have lost sphere on the way from the mailman today physical copy. Btw why doesn't Nintendo just import the Wii u eshop experience to the switch ? Unless they are doing something completely different like lets say ps4ish type online experience? I hate the fact that I can't send anybody on my friends list a message or invite them to a room to talk ala ps4 ps3 ps2 Xbox Xbox one xboxonex lol shit even cellphones allow u to properly speak to people while gaming so why can't switch?

@NIN10DOXD

Only really benefits the rich. The rest of us won't benefit till a massive price drop and even then, data usage will just get bigger and bigger.

An external harddrive update would be awesome. Sure you'd probably could only use it for TV mode, but still some of us only use the Switch on TV, plus it can't be that hard to pick and choose what games you want to have on the go right?

@NEStalgia Well, I was getting into AM4 for 2017, and I wanted to jump straight from my old HDD to an NVMe for the boot drive. Still got another few SSD's for games and an extra HDD for backup storage, though! I do have a valid excuse beyond being a slobbering nerd, honest! An empty PCIe X4 path wouldn't have been very useful, and I would have felt an emptiness inside if it were empty... so I decided to populate it. I physically ran out of space for more 2.5/3.5" drives, and I'm also using an M.2 SATA SSD as well! It wasn't a waste of money in my case, because the only things that were paid for at retail was my old HDD back from 2010, and the NVMe drive last year. All the other SSD's and extra HDD I got free from work. So I'm a bit of a special case. Speaking of which, the case was free too, got that from work.

It's true that businesses still typically use HDD's and SATA III SSD's for mass production loads... But individual consumers usually like having options, so NVMe drives might interest them more than enterprise NVMe drives currently interest most businesses. My 250GB Samsung 960 EVO was about $120, which is... the same price today. Exorbitantly priced? Maybe. But what other more practical use is a consumer going to get out of that PCIe X4 path? Certainly not a dual 1 or 10gbps ethernet adapter, like businesses might use. Using it for a second GPU gimps it. May as well use something!

The PS4 Pro definitely shows more benefit from using an SSD than base PS4, but hey, improvement is improvement. And since consoles can't really be upgraded in too many ways... Hey, why not?

The PS4 Pro uses an overclocked Jaguar, up to 2.1 GHz on each core instead of 1.8 GHz. I would say that's a bottleneck at this point for more demanding titles. But at least it's not nearly as much as it is for XB1X, which also uses the Jaguar, while having an improved GPU... Talk about bottleneck city!

@PlywoodStick You made fair points, I can see why they would also be owed an apology.

This shows how expensive it is to buy games as downloads.
Pay top price on Nintendo eshop.
No trade in value
Storage card
No physical box
I purchased Mario Galaxy for £42.
I have completed it and as a trade in I should get a least £20. Game cost me £22 to play.
Yooka_Laylee cost £35 to download and costs £35 to play. Is it worth the risk? Is it worth the storage cost? Is it value for money compared to Mario?

@PlywoodStick Hey man, if they get the clicks, they don't care

At least this should bring down the prices of 128/256 GB cards.

@Rayquaza2510

Several things that I've read suggest that there is no point in going beyond UHS-1:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-best-microsd-cards-for-switch-loading-time-comparison

https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/the-best-micro-sd-cards-for-the-nintendo-switch/2900-1165/

@Dang69 Wish no more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbItTEmozxw

@Rayquaza2510 Also, I don't see a UHS3 card being faster than the actual internal Switch memory, for obvious reasons.

So, loading times would speed up by 0.5 seconds when compared to UHS-1 cards? If not less? Given Switch doesn't support UHS-3 top speeds. Watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbItTEmozxw

@Olmectron Thank youuu, I subbed to them last summer so I missed that.

@Olmectron Awesome links!

@JoyconGang The last 2 3DS Kriby entries have been fantastic. Some people complain about the same-ness, but if the same is that good, why not?

DKC:TF is an excellent game. If you missed it on WiiU, it's a no brainier. Easily one of the best platformers of all time from a technical standpoint. It adds a bit of Rayman's "rhythmic platforming" and it works well.

I got Setsuna as an import physical...but Lost Sphear, I didn't realize that's a possibility!

@PlywoodStick @PlywoodStick Oh geeze, the OCD need to fill every slot or feel the emptiness. Let me know when you hit rock bottom. We'll talk.

Yeah, the Jaguar in X1X is the only think that kept me from jumping all in instead of evaluating PC still. I know that's a real bottleneck. Which is a shame because the whole machine is just so darned NICE....why did they have to ruin it with that? Except that it's an almost perfect liquid cooled ultra low form factor low power consumption PC.

@NEStalgia Did I mention that I also spent over $100 on fans? I even shelled out for a 120mm Gentle Typhoon for the bottom intake fan. Nothing else would do. And the stock fan wasn't enough for the CPU. I went for the Cryorig H7 heatsink/fan, AND got a 120mm Cougar fan so the heatsink can have dual fans, AND a 120mm Aerocool Shark fan for ventilation. Also an Aerocool 200 x 20 mm fan for those drives in the front. Last but not least, I got an 80 mm Noctua fan with a horizontal PCI/e slot attachment to provide extra cooling for the GPU! But it wouldn't fit on naturally, so I had to bend it with pliers until it would fit! ^ _ ^ Nice and airy... ◎ _ ◎ BUT WAS IT ALL WORTH IT?

I only just upgraded from a 128gb to a 200gb card 2 months ago and don't think I'll be needing a 512gb card anytime soon hopefully.

I am happy to hear this news because it paves the way for better micro sd cards. This card is a start now its just a matter of time before we start seeing this size plus speed increases. The nature of technology and all that moving forward. I am using the sandisk 200 gb card and have no idea what its speed is but it seems acceptable to me for the time being.

@JoyconGang you are so wrong with your post about developers needing 64GB carts

200 GB is also relatively cheap, I may go with one of those. 512 is pricey as hell.

@kobashi100 This is the fist time I have ever heard anyone say the price for flash memory never goes down... it is like I am talking to a kid who has zero experience with the market.

@AlexOlney ’s avatar ALWAYS matches perfectly to whatever he’s saying. It’s uncanny!

@FinalFrog how dare you make such a controversial statement

Bet.

512gb already here means we're on good pace to reach 1 terabyte before the generation is over.

And btw, write Speed means squat for Switch. Read speed is what matters. And prices drop fast. I paid $250 for a 256gb when Switch launched. When the 400gb cards released it was already down to $149, and on sale for $99. I think the 400gb cards will still hold their price a while since they're so new, but this card could force Sandisk and Samsung's hand to release a 512gb also, prematurely driving down prices on the 400gb.

And lastly, just observing how it's every day in the comment sections here. All it takes is one incessantly combative, perpetually complaining bad apple to spoil the bunch. And it seems we have half a dozen or so now. No wonder the forums are the only safe haven left on this site.

Well, that was toxic.

@kobashi100 how am I wrong if half these games updates alone are in the 30gb download. If this so called stupid rumor is true about gta 5 coming to switch how does gta 5 online and offline fit on 1 32gb and all the ultra insane large updates? Once again they nees to release 64gb cards to developers because i would have rather had both revelation 1 and 2 on 1 card than 1 card rwvelations and part 2 as a stupid 32 gb download on its on. This is the internet btw there is no wrong or right answers in the court of opinion

I've read somewhere else (sorry but don't remember where) that this is a game card NOT specially recommended for the Switch because of the low speeds. Not sure how true that statement i's, but it's there.

Besides, at those prices I'm definitely not interested. I won't buy a SD card that costs more than the Switch itself. That is just insane. And demonstrates pretty clearly why the Switch comes with such small internal storage. It would made the console prohibitively expensive to put something big in there.

A little education for those that do not know the difference and confuse others with wrong numbers:

k = kilo
K = kelvin (absolute temperature)

m = milli
M = mega

g = gram (mass)
G = giga

b = bit
B = byte (8 bits)

@PlywoodStick Wow. Just......wow. Yeah, you're a complete whack job....a true PC gamer..... That's whats crazy to me about PC....all this special custom "gamer" junk for PC that exists both in brand and form just for "gamers" with neverending costs. None of those fan rigs exist for normal productivity machines, even performance workstations. Back in my day (gets on rocking chair) when I got into PC gaming.....the original Pentium was all there was, and there was no weird crazy custom gaming stuff.....it was just about buying quality off the shelf standard parts. When the "gaming" hardware started appearing is when PC gaming started going off the rails a bit. After 2000 it just went nuts. TBH I like the old way better. Sure there's more nerd toys for "enthusiasts" (with lots of cash to burn) now.....but....the purity of it kind of got lost along the way....the fun was building a normal kit by researching your parts and making something special out of it...it was just a beige box like any other on the outside but you knew it was just well tuned parts used better than the corps were using it on the inside. Not hot rodding with finished spoilers and light kits and growler mufflers and fuzzy dice in the mirror. Meh. Kids.

TBH I think @Yorumi 's version of PC gaming is more in line with how it USED to be....I like that approach for modern gaming. Not about the crazy hot rodded systems but just building a mainstream comp that plays the games.

Besides, I'm SHOCKED you're not into liquid cooling. That was all the rage when I left the scene. Even X1X uses it. Every case around at the time was all about the radiator. Which in itself defines everything wrong that happened to PC gaming. For my money, water and $3k in PC hardware didn't seem like a good mixture along with cheap Chinese friction fittings......

@JoyconGang I'm more disturbed by the fact GTAV is still selling at chart leading levels at all. That game is old as sand and wasn't really all that amazing to begin with. It was ok, I played much of it....but couldn't get myself to finish it....just totally lost interest. It says a lot about what people buy these days...

I know what you mean I have it for ps4 and never even played story mode lol. Online I only got to level 55 and stopped playing.. switch needs brand new AAA and not remakes and he remasters..

@NEStalgia Yeah, I sat and wondered to myself last year several times, staring at the parts laid out with the incomplete build @ midnight, "Why is it so difficult to get everything together? Should I take the prolonged length that this little project of mine is going on as a sign that I need to do something different? What will I accomplish in doing all of this?"

...But I pressed on anyways. Was it worth it? Pfff, hell if I know. Most people wouldn't have gone through all that. I guess my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know how it would turn out in the end. Badly enough that I pushed through until nothing useful was missing, until the pieces fit together. Eventually, the cold, brushed aluminum door on the front of the case finally felt like it was inviting me, rather than pushing me away. And when that midtower case just barely fit between those metal cylindrical bars on the bottom left of my somewhat cramped desk setup... That's when it finally felt right. And I've hardly had to do any maintenance since. (But I should probably open it up to get any dust out soon...)

Since I'm using a Ryzen 5 1600, and it only clocks up to 4.0 GHz tops anyways (with voltage tuning, though I'd rather just set it up to 3.8 GHz with minimal tuning, having it last longer and not work as hard), liquid cooling is just not worth the expense and risk in this setup. Even the stock cooler could keep it quiet @ 31°C when idle and 40-50°C under load on stock clocks. I'm satisfied with just letting the computer breathe, inhale and exhale, it doesn't need to be a mini fridge on top of that.

I would consider my desires relatively conservative for an enthusiast, actually. One friend I've known since high school won't accept anything less than a full tower, steel frame, water cooling with 240-360mm radiator and multiple 120mm fans, $400+ GPU (GTX 1070), an unlocked Core i7, 32 GB of 2400 MHz RAM (he's still using top of the line DDR3), 200mm x 30mm fan on the side AND front of the case, multiple SATA III SSD's and two 2TB Caviar Black HDD's, and a quiet noise profile. (Rollers on the bottom of the case also a plus.) And he still wants to upgrade.

Me? I'll be fine for a while... ^ _ ^

Until Navi GPU's release and I wake up @ 5 AM to go camp outside the Micro Center. ʘ _ ʘ

Just an extra 250 on your system, no biggie

Has anyone got a time machine so I can go forward 20 years and buy this for £20?

@JayJ I never said price never goes down. I said the large cards have generally held there price. You said that if you wait a year the 512GB will be a fraction of the original price. I am saying that is simply not true. The prices are not dropping so quickly or as big as you make out.

Maybe in the states it's different but here in the UK the large cards are not cheap at all.

@AlexOlney know your audience.

@Rayquaza2510 Is the Sandisk 400GB Micro SD card the same as this 512GB one?

@kobashi100 That hasn't been my experience and I have had well over a decades worth.

@Rayquaza2510 80mb/s is fine. Here’s an article where one card rated at that out performed Nintendo’s own cartridges in every test, if only slightly to the point of being meaningless.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-best-microsd-cards-for-switch-loading-time-comparison_7

Given games are designed to run off the cartridges, a memory card that performs as well (slightly better) isn’t going cause too many issues.

@Yorumi There have been other developments, too! For example, crowd funding had now become a viable (if imperfect) method of funding game production. One of the best PC games of last year, Divinity: Original Sin 2 was crowdfunded- after the first game was also successful after being crowdfunded! Nontraditional types of games like Doki Doki Literature Club are also on the rise. (And that one is free, no strings attached!). Not that consoles aren't getting good games, but it seems like with a few notable exceptions, creativity throughout the console business is slowly stagnating, while on PC it's flourishing.

There's negative things too, like the price of GPU's skyrocketing due to multiple market factors. Many say it's due to mining, which is part of it, but that's not the whole story. It's also borne on the backs of consumers who have only bought NVIDIA products, even in times when they've been worse deals for worse hardware, and accept paying the exorbitant price jacks no matter what. NVIDIA has no incentive to go beyond Pascal, since they're making money hand over fist, which won't change until AMD's close to releasing Navi. And NVIDIA invests their profits into car GPU's, not necessarily better deals for gamers. And all of this is just one issue.

And then of course, by next year, multi chip module GPU's will release, and we will finally see a significant generational leap after so long. Titles like Cyberpunk 2077 (and maybe Star Citizen?) will exemplify this difference in scope. The rift between what's needed for new AAA titles will grow, and so will the rift between what's needed between those and indie titles.

Meanwhile, Intel will still be on top, but not be the untouchable behemoth they once were. AMD's market share influence is rising, and even Intel has recognized that by using AMD's Vega chips for their new iGPU's on upcoming Coffee Lake chips. (And presumably Cannon Lake as well, eventually.)

Put together, there's a lot of shifts going on in the PC market, and it's different from the pendulum swinging back and forth between Nintendo's or Sony's or Microsoft's direction. It'll be interesting from here on out!

@Yorumi Technically I have zero interest in indies. I'm not big into the major publisher AAAs but only rarely does anything indie interest me. I filter most of them out when I see them. I mostly seek "professional studio A or AA" type grade games. The AAAs are bloated messes, the indies are rough, unpolished, or too simplistic. A/AA is that sweet spot to me representing how "big" games were in the late 90's, even early '00s.

The push to VR is cool but so limited. I got a PSVR and really like it a lot...but it certainly doesn't represent my staple gameplay....and there's a thin library in general still. I played like 2 hours of Skyrim on it and haven't touched it in a month though I largely blame Odyssey and Rabbids I want to try out that Last Guardian demo though. PC may do it better, which is cool, but it has some years to go before it's really worth doing a build for...adn there's too many problems to flesh out to be anything but a geek toy.

But as long as it's keeping hardware constrained that's a good thing. Though it's been stable for so long that makes me think JUST after I'd buy in is when it gets radically disrupted and obsolete again

@PlywoodStick Again you give me warning signs that say "run from PC gaming like the plague"

I'm not sure a hardware shift is really what it once was anymore though. Where DO graphics go from here? Is it just about making it ever more photo perfect? I mean Odyssey and such already looks better than most animated series. So is it just about recreating real life in pixel perfect detail? If so, just because the tech CAN do it, can any developer actually afford to DO it? At some point it becomes a lot cheaper to produce a hollywood movie than artificially recreate reality to the detail digitally. The tech enthusiasts want to see tech keep improving. The artists want to keep creating movies called games. But who can afford to MAKE games utilizing those graphics and assets, and what consumer is willing to pay for it?

There's a disconnect between "PC grade graphics" and "sustainable development and economics". Maybe prices can be driven down with tech. Energy and heat can be driven down. Performance may be able to go up...but can anyone USE that performance in a way that makes economic sense?

I get nervous whenever anyone talks about new generations of hardware and incredible new leaps forward. Publishers have closed and consolidated left and right just trying to keep up with the current. Any more "progress" and we may be left with EA and a monthly statement for billable hours played as the entirety of the gaming industry.

@Yorumi @NEStalgia Also! Some interesting metrics from GDC 2018:

https://cdn.fbsbx.com/v/t59.2708-21/27020406_1527377510703322_1696869526278242304_n.pdf/GDC_State_of_the_Game_Industry_Report_2018.pdf?oh=f1c000ed33b9b07221badea08380e65a&oe=5A6BADD6&dl=1

Interest in the Switch is rising, while interest in VR is waning. For VR in particular, development projects from respondents have dipped below 20%, and it's only shrinking. Seems like this wave of VR was yet another fad, and devs are beginning to wise up towards developing for Switch.

A particularly interesting tidbit: the most popular platform to develop for by far is PC. 60% of respondents are currently developing for PC vs 36% for mobile, 30% for PS4, 26% for XB1, and everything else is less. (NS rose to 12% up from 3% - this tells us why there hasn't been much in the way of big 3rd party support yet, but it's on the way.) Thr amount of development going on for PC even eclipses mobile by a significant margin. I still remember when some industry pundits said PC was on it's way out in the early-mid 00's. Today, it's by far the most popular platform to develop for. A lot of people think it's mobile... Nope.

One thing's for sure- PC isn't going anywhere. It's here to stay.

@AlexOlney Alex man chill pour yourself big glass wine and play some video games

@PlywoodStick @Yorumi One thing about GDC is despite the presence and keynotes from major players, GDC is very indie and small dev focused, and features a large worldwide pool. The metrics there don't necessarily line up with "our" view of the industry. I.E. the Intrest waning in VR may not mean much since that's a high-cost endeavor more favored by the bigger players. It also pre-dates the large volume of VR headsets that Sony sold this Black Friday with their deep discounts that may make it slightly more attractive moving forward. I learned to really like VR via that sale, however I've called it as a short term fad while I was shouted down by the naysayers for years Good product...but the current push is faddish. Still cool as a geek toy though.

But the large volume of interest in PC is, of course, the low barrier to entry, as well as, in large part, due to other countries outside the usual console bloc. And a HUGE growth area in PC is China (Steams latest survey showing the #1 steam Language is Simplified Chinese by over 60%....... That tells us a lot about the PC side of the industry.....a big chunk of "PC is leading" is easily "China's numbers skew the numbers massively." That's not a knock on the platform, but needs to be considered that these broad figures don't represent OUR market necessarily. If the majority of Steam's users are in China (or other Chinese speaking countries).....and plenty are in other countries both developed and developing, what percentage of the US market or UK market is really Steam vs. console? And what type and price points of games represent the majority on Steam? I'm guessing it's not Battlefield 1 and Destiny 2

I would like to see a revision of those numbers focusing ONLY on the US market, JP market, UK market, etc. I suspect it would look very very different. PC would still be top due to low barrier to entry, of course, but I think the numbers would be very different.

@Yorumi I do think the "indies" think has skwed PC in weird ways. Back in the day what we now call AAA didn't exist, mid-range games were the norm (including id games) and cheap titles were mostly shareware and flew under the radar with the odd cult hit. Now "games" have divided between "commercial" and "indie" with indie representing largely that budget 2D category and that is where PC has boomed....but I'm not sure that's a really broadly desirable market in the "PC vs console" discussion. It has more in common with mobile mostly. You bring up a good point about bigger indies. But are those indies? Most of them are published but people oddly call them indies. Yooka Laylee for that matter is "indie" but SHOULDN'T be. It's not actually indie. Elite certainly isn't indie, but gets listed that way. Basically if it's not a "studio system" game they now call it indie......which is completely wrong and makes it really hard to hold a discussion when the words all have no meaning.

EA occasionally does something decent. Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, Unravel, sometimes they do well in spite of themselves. Fe looks promising. So does A Way Out. Of coruse ME:C was fan service from an internal studio, and Fe, AWO, and Unravel are "indies" (published by EA....WHY are we calling these indies? 20 Years ago when Activision published Quake, and Eidos published Tomb Rader nobody called id and Core Design "indies")

The big publishers fare better 2-4 years after the game with a "complete" edition for half the price. That's the right price for the rpoduct.

As for cost savings, sure, rendering and lighting got pulled into middleware that made it a lot cheaper to produce. BUT as we push higher we get into photographic level texture assets. In 4k!, and such that make it really absurd to produce.

@Yorumi definitely. Idon't know where that lexicon came from but it's very broken. Borrowed from music where indie bands are unsigned garage bands that play more for fun than as a career. It does suit the low budget games but not that middle tier that is what game companies have always been.

Rabbids really is a great example that corporate still can do it too...... Though some of that is Miyamotos magic to be sure, the producer made that idea, pitched that idea and it was his own passion with more enthusiasm than even most Indies have. And credit to ubi for supporting it. Ubis and odd case. They are one of the big 4 and do some of the junk ea does..... But Yves is a gamer at heart and gets "gaming" too. And his staff loves him. I think he's walking a delicate love between what he and the team want to do and what the shareholders..... And especially hostile vivendi, the same one that ruined Activision and blizzard and Sierra demand. For every watch dogs level cluster eff we get a Mario+rabbids

@Yorumi i still love the assassin's Creed series. I'm not always happy with how they handle it. Unity was a disaster but with cool coop. The original game was focused and brilliant. Almost indie grade experimentalism and focus. 2 was a cinematic masterpiece. The rest have been either bad or so so. Haven't opened origins yet. But is the only aaai still get excited for.

Still no way to get your save-files on a memory-stick...