More Switch 2 Estimated File Sizes Seemingly Revealed

That expensive new type of micro sd card is going to fill up fast eh? I reckon SW2 is going to end up more of a first party machine since storage is limited

How is split fiction bigger than Cyberpunk and hitman lol

Insane. Games for a Nintendo console clocking in at 70+ GB. Plus all signs are pointing toward a very digital future for this console, what with physical 3rd party games mostly being “card keys.” I think I will buy the rare 3rd party games otherwise stick to Nintendo exclusives.

F2P Fortnite looking not quite so free with the amount of data it's going to guzzle up!

And Hitman better be released on cartridge... 😭

Blood Money is the only Hitman game I've ever played and I loved it. Would be eager to grab a new one... provided that they don't screw up its physical release.

And Nintendo seriously need to consider smaller and larger cartridges, because the physical release situation at present is an absolute disaster.

If anything, proper physical releases are looking even more appealing than ever. Who would want to continually swap microSD cards for a mere handful of games (that also add to the overall cost of the game) when one can pay an extra tenner or so for a proper cartridge release especially for these enormous games?

How is Split Fiction THAT much bigger than Cyberpunk jeez. Really hope they can put most of it on a physical cartridge or idk if I'm gonna bother

That very short list of games above wouldn't even fit on a 256GB card. 😳

I'd rather pay an extra tenner for their physical releases (which would only cost an additional AU$50), over paying AU$80 for a microSD card (and that expense wouldn't end there either, as even digital enthusiasts would be swapping microSDs nearly as much as physical enthusiasts swap cartridges, if these early game sizes are anything to go by!). 🤷‍♂️

@DLevene17 Currently seems max size of card is 64 gig, so even if they wanted to, they couldn’t put all of it on a card. And if you can’t put all—why put any?

@SillyG Oh shoot. Didn’t even realize that. Maybe all my non-first party games (the admittedly few) will have to be physical, or I wont get them at all ¯\(ツ)/¯

The question is are those games have been compressed like Switch 1 games?
From my experience, example FF XII TZA Switch version is 12.7 GB for digital games, 41 GB for PS4 version.
Btw, I only looking for smaller GB size of 3rd party games like Cooking Mama, Moving Out, Barbie, Paw Patrol, Story of Seasons, etc.
Don't even care with gargantuan GB size of AAA games.

Shin'en should start offering classes to other game devs in how to optimise their games.

Now those 256GB of internal storage looks pretty misserable.

@Anti-Matter Well, Cyberpunk 2077 + the DLC is around 102 GB on PC, so 56.8 GB is certainly smaller.

Lmao no disrespect to Hazelight but how the hell is their game larger in size compared to 3 whole Hitman games, both base Cyberpunk and it's dlc, and SF6 with all of it's current dlc and updates

@Bigmanfan
Don’t know anything about that game but does it have a lot of video files? If so that’s why especially if they’re 4K, 60fps or both.
@Anti-Matter
Switch 2 has hardware decompression like PS5 so most devs will want to use it but it can’t do much to further compress video and audio files.

@SalvorHardin
So Switch 2 games size case is different with Switch 1 games?

And this is why key cards stink. I have a 1.5 terabyte sd card in my current switch. It’s about half full, plenty of space left. I transfer that, I get a few third parties… I’m going to need a big sd card for switch 2 in no time. They literally don’t make big enough sd cards for all the third party games I buy… or would have bought as the case may be. People say it’s annoying having to swap out the cartridges, but I think it’s much more annoying having to choose games to delete or redownload them later if you want to play it again after a while. You want to spend 30 minutes deciding what to delete and then wait an hour for a 70gb game to download and install? I mean I don’t usually play for more than about an hour at a time anyway. The games I buy will be played once and discarded if I can’t store them on local memory…

1 TB SD card isn’t even available in stores here (even for preorder), so I had to stick with 512 GB and even that was an preorder. I wonder what will arrive first - Switch 2 or SD card.

However as my primary gaming platform is PC (and seeing I have refunded Cyberpunk at Steam and have no interest in any other 3rd party game so far presented) space shouldn’t be much of an issue. Not to mention I can download 100 GB per hour.

@MSaturn I don’t see that as an issue. On PC I couldn’t fit all my games on drives even if I bought additional 2 drives. I currently have 7 games installed on PC that I actually play.

Yes, on Switch I have much more games installed but than again, I play like 5. I feel like people see problems where there are non.

"you'll also be able to expand your library with the help of a Micro SD Express card"

Oh, will I? So far my options still seem limited to this link with two remaining $80 copies to accommodate fewer than three cyberpunks on each.😏 Onliner, arguably the country's most famous tech catalogue to this day, doesn't even have a filter for Express cards (not counting unrelated CFExpress or whatchamacallit).

Sounds like a predictably sour price to pay for the new console serving as Nvidia's frixel flex showcase, but on the upside, there's hoping that third parties have yet to acclimatize themselves with next gen's compression options. Switch itself has gone from 28 Gb of Pillars of Eternity and 18 Gb of Observer to the 14-15 Gb of Kingdom Come Deliverance and Hogwarts Legacy, not to mention examples like Burnout Paradise or No Man's Sky at 5-6 Gb. Ditto in Japan with, say, Atelier Rorona's 8 Gb versus Yumia's 4. Time will tell, although I'm not amused at how the current trends mean I can't even have full confidence in Bravely Default's 11 Gb having room for the dual audio anymore.

As far as I can tell the Switch 2 is also limited to a maximum card size of 2TB. That's not much given the file sizes above especially when the theoretical sizes of the cards are much bigger.

There's some suggestion that all the major players are looking into handhelds going forwards so maybe we need a new storage medium.

Lol, wait till call of duty comes on the switch 😁🤣🤣

Almost 300GB 🥵

Storage certainly won't be an issue for me at launch as I've got no interest in getting any of those for it and instead am looking at Mario Kart and Donkey Kong, with a bit of Fast Fusion thrown in

This is my biggest concern with the Switch 2.

256GB is paltry, and although MicroSD Express cards can be used, they cost 2-3x as much as the fastest non Express cards today, talking $200+ for a 1TB MicroSD Express card currently. 1TB is the largest available at the moment, and AFAIK, only available from Lexar. SanDisk only has up to 256GB MicroSD Express cards currently, no other major manufacturers have put any out yet.

1TB is going to fill up real fast if games are going to be this size. Not to mention folks that already have a substantial digital Switch library that they want to move over.

If I want to move my Switch library over to the Switch 2, I have to buy at least a 1TB MicroSD Express card, or just keep my OG Switch around which I'd rather not do if I don't have to. Sure I could keep deleting and redownloading games as needed, but who wants to have to deal with that? Especially given the eShop's historically abysmal download speeds.

oh god I need a 1 / 2TB SD card or Those game better have fully port inside the Card. The 256gb for Nintendo Exclusive game only

So thrilled that there won't be true physical options for most of this, seemingly because Nintendo's skimping out big time and offering far less options for cartridge sizes on Switch 2. 64GB or next to nothing is genuinely absurd (and Rune Factory needing a 64GB cartridge all but confirms that rumor).

Will Nintendo Ever Have a 2 Cartridge Game like they Did a While Back with SD Gundam G Generation Genesis on the PS Vita ?

It looks like 256gb internal storage will only fit 4-6 games. The storage limitation may be worse than the original switch 32gb

Geez. The combination of third parties refusing to properly compress their games and refusing to put out proper physical releases is going to make maintaining your library a nightmare. Soon we'll have to start bulk ordering 100 GB microsds and keeping one game on each.

I still have one question about the installation of physical Switch 2 games.
On Switch 1, the games only take very few MB to GB to install, some of them really don't take any MB but just only take very few MB for creating Save data.
How about Switch 2 physical games installation working?
Will Switch 2 only take a few MB to GB like Switch 1 or it will full installation onto micro SD card / internal directly from cartridge so it will like PS4 / PS5 disc installation?

Oh wow, I did not expect Split Fiction to be that big.

Wow those are some whoppers. I'll stick largely to first party games I think and carry on getting third parties on PC

That's why I'm getting a Switch 2 without the Kart bundle, and paying more for the physical. It's a game I would never want to archive, and seeing it permanently take up all that space would tick me off...

Split Fiction is crazy large which is no surprise given how much space It Takes Two is eating up on my PS5. I feel like I only play one massive game at a time though and a lot of indies/older games in between so I'm not worried I'll have a ton of issues, but let's hope micro sd express cards expand and drop in price as fast as their predecessor.

@Anti-Matter : It's identical to the Switch. The fast read speeds of the cartridges negates any need to fully install games to the console.

switch 2 will get third party games that did not come to switch 2.. some of these games file size might be more then the 256 gig storage of switch 2 lol..

@nhSnork i do not think third party companies will even bother with compression for switch 2 why should they. they will just port games over to switch 2 and hope people buy these games digitally..

That's low for Cyberpunk?! Hope it's true

I wonder if Nintendo have forgotten about the PS Vita. A contributing factor to its demise was its use of proprietary cards which were small and expensive. It's not easy finding the new SD express and most are 256. The market will no doubt be flooded with knock offs when Switch 2 releases.

I was wondering where the rumour of only two sizes of cart being available came from…

Waiting on IO to open pre orders so I can judge whether the physical version is reasonable.
Looking forwards to this, MKW, Deltarune and GameCube nostalgia at launch!

@SillyG
Okay, glad to hear.

I'd really like to get both the Cyberpunk and Hitman games, but they need to be physically all (or most of) on the cartridge. Same goes for Elden Ring.
I think otherwise I'll just pass. I have no interests in collecting SD cards. One is fine.

@Bigmanfan I believe the developers of Cyberpunk are more talented at compressing data.

@Yalloo Cyberpunk is fully on a cartridge.

Woo defo only getting street fighter at launch. And apparently not transferring anything else over. Will wait until the express cards are 2TB. I’m fine with the game size but want max storage.

4K textures do take a lot of space..

Same old, same old. The more things change the more they stay the same. Nintendo were damned which ever way they went because if they didn’t change up the memory card speed people would’ve moaned about the loading times and whatever size they offered on the internal drive, it would never have been enough…

@johnedwin I buy all these games digitally as it is, and that only makes the storage concerns more topical. Which third parties seem aware of, or we wouldn't have seen the down-the-road examples I listed above either. Heck, Warframe's filesize has even been fluctuating over the years, growing larger with updates and then shrinking down impressively with subsequent optimizations (which often made it a smaller download to completely reinstall the game because of all the textures and other stuff the patch was to overhaul😆).

I'll double dip for the physical edition of Cyberpunk, just to send a message.

A message that no one will heard, I know, but I'll send it anyway.

And I want to play it on the move, too !

Yeah that 256 GB not gonna hold many games… wow..

@Bobobiwan bro what?? 😂 i think you should buy 10 copies of cyberpunk to better send ur message

Digital goes choo choo.

Guess we can say goodbye to physical
"Please insert cart 2"
Lol

@Abrammchi
Good idea.

But SquareEnix and Capcom don't think.
"Oh it didn't sell ?
Let's stop supporting Nintendo"

instead of

"Oh it didn't sell ?
People want actual hardcoopies ? Sure"

Gonna have to start considering whether games are worth the money AND the space they take up now, especially if they're going to end up being archived/redownloaded to make space for other games.

Just another reason for me NOT to get a Switch 2, having to buy tons of Micro SD cards for digital game storage.

I will only play nintendo 1st party titles and indies so the internal 256GB is enough for me for a while. At least until the microsd express card is a little bit cheaper than now.

So, SF6 being released as a game key card is really bad news. Now I'll have to get an extra micro SD card for sure. And I might just as well buy digitally... Looks like this gen will push digital only even further and I hate it!

i think most of the third party switch 2 games will be key cards cyberpunk is the exception even bravely default 11 gigs and all is a key card game..

How the heck is The Continuing Mis-Adventures of Not-Cookies-and-Cream 3 the biggest one?

Ouch. Time to cancel my 256GB MicroSD Express order and upgrade it to 512GB it seems 😕

@MSaturn You’ll need to buy a new card either way because Switch 2 only supports MicroSD Express cards

@Gorlock Yeah, I have a 256GB card along with whatever is usable of the internal 64GB of my Steam Deck (which after all proton updates etc. isn’t much). Couple of larger games like Cyberpunk and Epic Mickey installed, plus a decent selection of smaller games (including stuff like Persona 4). Would be nice to have everything on tap but realistically I swap between a handful of games and if I need to make space for something new there’s always enough stuff I don’t play or intend to anytime soon so it’s no bother to delete them. Not as big of an issue as it’s being made out to be.

@Bigmanfan never underestimate EA’s laziness when it comes to optimization

@SillyG wait for the updates on fortnite

That's why I'm not a fan of Key Game Cards...
I'll focus on 1st party and for 3rd party, I'll stick with Switch 1 physical games with upgrades as long as possible. One 1TB card come out, we'll see.

@Gorlock eh, everyone’s different I guess but I already went through something like this with the PS4 and the space required for the mandatory installs and it definitely impacted how much I used the system and ultimately how many games I even wanted to buy.

I'm suddenly very upset how I already have 500gb of games on my current 1tb card.
That is WITH many games that I don't frequently pick up being archived already.
And then seeing how Hitman on its own would only fit on an SD card 16 times...
I really enjoyed having my entire gaming library of 500+ games on my console at one time.
Hope that's manageable again without having to start buying multiple Express SDs I'd have to switch constantly...

Does only Nintendo have compression specialists? While I think the console will do well, I can see third parties regretting supporting it. Many of us will not buy many of those game key cards.

I said this why should Nintendo go with 256gb 😒, knowing the size of game files these days! Sucks balls.

This makes the Switch a freaking horrible console for 3rd parties. Good thing I'm making this my Nintendo exclusive console because even the extra micro SD card is not enough if you're planning to buy 4 future 3rd party games on top of transferring from the OG Switch.

@sanderev and yet Nintendo gave US plentiful 256GB to future proof their system... They really couldn't try and give us 500gb?

@thaimbomb There honestly is a lot of difference between 256GB and 512GB. They should've added a 16TB SSD to the system at least.

/s

Adding more storage would've made the system more expensive. Especially with fast speed storage.

Good thing the only game above that I'm interested in is confirmed to fully fit on a physical cartridge (Cyberpunk 2077). Now to see how it actually runs on the Switch. Hopefully without too many compromises.

@Guitario only one company has 1TB card too. Lexar is the top one at the moment, I was hoping Samsung and SanDisk would have it too

This is ridiculous. Haven't they heard of a little something called optimization? Amateurs.

@progx
Is Lexar viable? I mean is it a good brand that produces quality products?

@SillyG Fortnite is almost double the size that is on Switch, so, almost PC size, that's nice. I'll be getting most of my games, digital. The only one that I plan to buy physical, is Cyberpunk, due to CD Projekt Red's effort to put everything on the cartridge.

@mlt Lexar has been around for a very long time. I knew them for their printers originally, but they have a wider offering than that now. I’d say they’re reputable. Amazon is sold out of the Lexar 512 GB and 1TB at the moment, but Samsung is making the official Nintendo cards which will be available at launch (256GB is the only one I can find).

Dang, I was hoping to put off buying an SD card for a while, but it looks like it'll be sooner rather than later

Thankfully not an issue for me. Generally only play one or 2 games at a time. Once I'm finished, delete to make room for next game

@blockfight thing is the way it works you can offload games if you run out of space and redownload at any time. Did that with Smash. Never play it so offloaded it. I can redownload whenever I want. Even on the Switch 2.

Feeling better about my decision to wait a while before getting the console now. Just a handful of third-party games will chew through the system memory (not to mention that I'd fill it immediately with a system transfer from my Switch), most of them don't have proper physical releases by the look of it, and those microSD express cards are expensive at the moment. Hopefully by the time I get my hands on a Switch 2, those memory cards and actual physical games will have dropped in price (standard microSD cards are much cheaper now than they were when the Switch launched, so there's hope).

Will be making good use of archiving feature then alongside my lexar express 1tb sd card. Hoh boy....

Got the amazon priced street fighter 6 "physical". I'll probably only get Cyberpunk out of the ones listed in the immediate future.

At this rate, it looks like I'll be using multiple micro SD cards whether I want to or not. I literally just skated by the skin of my teeth with Switch 1 with a 128GB microSD card.

@FormerGameAddict 2 games on the same cart?

You mean like third parties did like Sega's bundled ones? Sonic/Monkey Ball is one.

Or something like Pikmin 1 & 2 HD which I think is my only current dual game card I have so far besides digital ones by third parties offering both inside the game like I got with Mary Skelter 2 with the 1st game to unlock via a free DLC or just beat the game

Or those with game select menus rather then offering both separate.

Compared to like the Bayonetta downloads or separate releass.

Sure they were more plentiful on GBA with 2-4 in 1 carts or odd Wii games with the many disks bundled with a movie (WB did some back then or others did on PS3).

Or the PSP WipEout Pure demo and Stealth movie on it.

Among other examples out there for games or game + a movie but yeah Switch 1 has a few 2 games on 1 card types out there by third parties I don't know of many 1st party ones besides Pikmin but probably a few others exist.

I don't know of 2 cards 1 case though I don't think those exist the way they do off multi-disk game cases.

Most others end up as of course the RE4, 5, 6 and 4 is on the card or other examples with the codes and 1 card or code only and such by third parties.

@SuntannedDuck2
Nope.. I mean 1 Game That Has 2 Cartridges to Make Sure There is Enough Space for the Entire Game to be on Cartridge Due to Smaller Sized GB Cartridges..

Look Up SD Gundam G Generation Genesis on the Ps Vita.. I Own This Ps Vita Game and They Made it Work Just Fine.

According to the included instructions: use game card I to register the app on your vita, then use game card II to install ~3.5 gb of files, and then game card I is used as the cartridge to open and play the game.

Maybe Switch 2 Can Do This and Keep us Away From Key Card Crap .. and We Can Own A Switch 2 Complete on Cartridge..

or Nintendo Can let Game Developers/Publishers etc Purchase Smaller GB Cartridges to Put Their Game on Instead of Pricey 64GB only Options

@Gorlock Lexar make a 1 TB Express card but is about $200. Hopefully prices will come down as more are made

Whew, good thing I couldn't care less about those games lol

@splinters
Clearly not, hence why it isn't a proprierty card....

@Abrammchi Yeah, I know xD

When I wrote "double-dip", I did not mean to buy two copies of the game <.< It's just that I already have Cyberpunk on Xbox, but since the Switch 2 is cross-save compatible, I can see myself continuing my game on the move

So I'll buy it on Switch 2, too.

@Boopero Thank you. I have seen it before but it’s not offered in local stores at all and even the offerings I saw in stores like Amazon were sold out. Will recheck.

This is why cartridges will remain the best form of video game media.
Buy physical and you don’t need to worry about HDD space as they don’t install onto the machine, they play right off the cart.
This is why key carts are disgusting.

Offer digital and/or offer physical. Not releasing physical full games is just cheating and putting off collectors and gamers. And also forcing you to buy additional memory, if all games were on carts, you wouldn’t even need an additional EX SD card

I was never a math whiz in school... I was more of an English and drama nerd. But I don't need to be a math major to quickly add up those file sizes and go, "Yeeesh!!" I got the 256GB EX card, so I'll just have to be careful about what games I download digitally for a while.

The fact that Hitman would fit perfectly on a 64GB game card and it STILL doesn't get a physical release is infuriating. What a supreme mess this launch is turning out to be.