 So today we're going to have a conversation about the digital future of Nintendo switch and I want to apologize because there was going to be an episode of prime comments today But due to some unforeseen circumstances in my personal life. I mostly with my children I'm not going to get too deep into what happened and also my grandfather who's in the hospital I've been a bit of a tough day, so I didn't have time to get a prime comments done But maybe I will get some preliminary work done so I can have it out early tomorrow I'm also happy to say that we will have a new episode of the podcast landing tomorrow as well or Right now actually if you want to hear the full audio podcast for this upcoming week You can actually head over to patreon.com slash Nintendo Prime and for five dollars a month You gain early access to the full audio of the podcast anyways We're going to talk about nintendo switch and the digital future because in a recent video I did Where I kind of criticized rich from review tech usa for his stance against a nintendo enthusiast article And if you go to the youtube card in the top right corner You will see a link to that video and be able to Kind of assess for yourself whether or not I did a good job arguing against his points But in reading the comments on that which was something I was going to respond to on prime comments I realized that we need to have a deeper conversation about the digital future of switch because As a portable device, I think all of us can agree the most convenient way to gain portably is Through digital downloads. I don't think that's even a point. That's up for debate And it's true that At least through the 3ds era that the best way to game on nintendo or at least the most convenient way Or the easiest way or the way that nintendo always kind of made you do it was with physical cartridges You know we've had cartridges on all of nintendo's handheld systems And even though the 3ds You had an ability to put an sd card or a micro sd card inside of it to expand the storage And there are plenty of you out there that did just that reality is nintendo was still heavily pushing the Physical cartridges they only included like a 2 gigabyte or a 4 gigabyte sd card in with the product So inevitably most consumers would have to buy cartridges instead of digital downloads But that was back in 2011 when that system released and even though there's been revision since then including the new 2ds excel this year Reality is that 2017 we have a brand new nintendo portable That's a hybrid system that also works as a home console And for the most part i've been pleasantly happy with the fact that Right now 100 but probably around 90 by the end of life Of nintendo switches games do not require installs now I have a feeling that the reason that we need extra memory for mba 2k 18 the reason that we need extra expansion memory for Resident evil the the second game you know there are resident evil revelations revelations 2 is a digital version The reason that we need the expandable memory on that is because third parties are One they make really really big games two They don't want to use the biggest version of nintendo's cartridges for the switch because they're expensive And nintendo could do something about that what they probably won't And we in fact there's been games bigger than mba 2k 18 That have already released in japan that use those bigger cartridges So we know they exist they could use it but they're not going to and reality is there are games bigger than 32 gigabytes Imagine if nintendo had destiny or destiny 2 on their system You're not putting that on a 32 gig cartridge You might be able to put a bunch of the install files on there But they're going to have to download a ton of stuff and the switch is nintendo's first system that Can not play Every single game released on it out of the box Most of nintendo systems and i'm sure you might be able to find some outlying examples where you need an accessory on we or something to play Uh to play something but often when you need an accessory the game you needed it for came with it Just like back in the day majora's mask needed the expansion pack and the initial run of majora's mask came with the expansion pack For your nintendo 64 so nintendo has always been good about giving you exactly what you need to play with every game But the games that are releasing like mba 2k 18 the physical version is not coming At least we don't think it's coming with a micro sd card included to allow you to play it So what happens is you buy a nintendo switch And suddenly you do not have the ability to play the full versions of every single game released on the platform Not just because there's not enough space to fit multiple games on there But even if you just want enough space to make sure you can fit even one game not even There's going to be some single games that cannot fit on the system And it's a problem and i'm not going to sit back here and pretend this isn't a problem And it's a huge problem if you go exclusively digital I want to make a stance clear right now. I do not think the switch has enough internal storage Period and I know I kept calling it memory. I realized memory is actually like the ram And i'm actually just talking about hard drive space and storage space. I get it. There's a difference Sorry for using the term memory, but uh it's it's one of those things that Is was frustrating with the wii u But still the wii us physical games didn't require any installs including third party games that were big because they used kind of Nintendo's own variation of a blu ray disc so they could fit the entire game on those discs besides dlc And there was plenty of room for dlc for any single game So even though wii u didn't have this problem with their 32 gigs But now we have this issue with switch because of the limitation on the size of the carts And yes, nintendo could create a cartridge that can hold 64 gigs They can do that that that's not some you know Nintendo In theory could create cartridges that hold up the two terabytes if they want But they'd be so stupidly expensive that third parties aren't going to use it and we're even seeing Uh instances where the physical copies of games are starting to cost more money Uh la noir was just announced, but it's 10 dollars more expensive on switch than it is on every other platform For the physical version. Why is that because the cartridge itself is more expensive now in hindsight If that's just because they're using the 32 gigabyte cartridge. I'm actually okay with that I would pay extra to not have to install or download any game from the physical version I think when you buy a physical version outside of patches, you shouldn't need to install things for the game Beyond patches and dlc. Uh, so i'm actually okay paying a 10 dollar premium, but I understand in a marketplace that doesn't play well and digitally 32 gigabytes is a joke for home console quality games. Yes, you could fit breath of the wild on there Yes, I I think I fit breath of the wild Mario kart 8 and swatoon 2 but like that's it I I really cannot put much on there besides some dinky indie games and for an all digital future I never expected nintendo with switch to give us 500 gigabytes, you know, they're not going to give us what xbox and playstation have I think nintendo with the switch made Three, I guess three kind of critical Errors, I guess One of them is that they released a system that didn't have enough internal memory for even Physical games that we're going to require installs nintendo had to know about this before launch So the fact that it didn't come with 64 minimum is a joke number two nintendo could have given us They could have encouraged people to customize their switches They could have included ports inside the system because it's really not that difficult to take apart Where people could plug in like m.2 ssds if we want now I'm not saying that's what all of us are going to do and I understand m.2 ssds can be expensive But it's still another storage upgrade option that a lot of people opt for there are people with the playstation 4 and xbox one That literally go in right away take out the internal hard drives and install ssds. It creates faster boot times And you know even with micro sd cards You need to get a higher end one if you want decent read speeds that are going to come close to matching with the cartridge matches Or what it matches reading directly off the internal storage space Otherwise, you're going to have increased load times Which I know some people aren't going to care about that stuff But for an all digital future you kind of do care about it and number three They should have obviously released a model that came with an sd card Even if that model, let's say it was a hundred dollars more So you have your 299 bundle with the 32 gigs or what I feel should have been 64 And then you have your 400 dollar model But your 400 dollar model comes with a 256 or even a 400 because nintendo With with mass production and big orders could have gotten probably one of those new 400 gigabyte ssds with 300 megabyte read speeds And included that with the system And I feel like because nintendo hasn't done that it's made the all digital future on switch extremely difficult to stomach And I I don't know what to do at this point. I don't know what nintendo should do I understand why they did the 32 gigs. I've always understand why I've understood everything I understand nintendo is actually pushing physical more, but it's It's a scary thought that as we move closer and closer to digital The switch seems to be moving further and further away from digital And I know a lot of people sort of think this isn't a big deal just buy your micro sd cards And you know, I get it. I'm going to be buying my micro sd cards too multiple of them, but Really out of the box nintendo should have included or at least included an option for a bundle that would give people a discount To get that kind of storage as I said if they could have had A 209 version with 64 gigs, which I think needs to be the minimum I think they need to double the internal storage to ensure there are zero issues that you could play every single game on nintendo switch Out the gate And then if they include made a 399 version that came, you know, either with a higher internal storage They say they gave you 400 gigs internal storage or 500 gigs or whatever or a 400 or a 256 or a 400 gig Really fast micro sd card included like they do with 3ds. I know they're really dinky micro sd cards But you get my point they could have included one that had a bunch of storage as well And they could really even come out next year and start including Micro sd cards with the base model as well if they want. I I don't know nintendo has a lot of ways to do but I understand In a world where digital is great and on mobile technology all of us play everything digitally on our cell phones and everything That it is an inconvenience with the switch to have to log around game cartridges now. I will note that unlike Unlike phones and this is kind of a point in the favor of cartridges You're not at least you shouldn't be just chucking your switch in your backpack, right? It has a plastic screen It definitely wasn't made even though you can fit it in your pocket It definitely wasn't made to be pocketed. It wasn't made to just be chucked in your backpack It was made to be put in a case and because you have to put it in a case It's not that hard for cases to include storage. In fact every single switch case I've seen out there includes physical game storage So again, it's an inconvenience to swap out cartridges But it's already inconvenient to bring your switch with you in comparison to a cell phone. So I guess that's a point where nintendo It still has a point to be pushing physical and I'm glad they haven't abandoned the physical medium But obviously personally I would love to live in an all digital age with switch and I can I had to spend quite a bit of money to do it but I can live in that age and I wish nintendo would have just made that age a little bit easier and I don't think there's anything nintendo is going to do now as I said I've made some suggestions But I think if they ever release a revision of the nintendo switch whether it has a tegra x2 or not I'm hoping that one of the big things I do with that revision is realize There are people who are willing to pay more for your system if it includes a significant increase in memory If they could somehow get 500 gigs of flash memory inside that system You better believe if they just if they charged only a hundred dollars more those things are gonna fly off the shelf for people That specifically want an all digital future But that or no, maybe that's just me. You guys let me know if you have a solution for Trying to go completely 100 digital on nintendo switch Anyways folks, I am Nathaniel of a chance from nintendo prime if you like this video You know what to do and if you dislike this video hit that dislike button Subscribe for more and as always folks. I will catch you in the next one