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Nintendo Sells at Least 10 Million Switch Consoles in 2017, 64 GB Game Cards Delayed to 2019

Accepted submission by takyon at 2017-12-27 20:28:39
Techonomics

As of mid-December, Nintendo sold 10 million Switch consoles worldwide [arstechnica.com], after around 9 months [soylentnews.org] of availability. The Switch [wikipedia.org] outpaced sales of most other consoles in their initial months, except for the PS4.

Some big titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [soylentnews.org] (an influence on Zelda: Breath of the Wild [gamespot.com]) have been ported to Nintendo Switch. But the ability to port certain games may be hindered by the delayed release [arstechnica.com] of 64 GB "game cards" [wikipedia.org] (proprietary ROM cartridges) for the system:

Those wishing for 64GB Nintendo Switch game cards will have to keep waiting. According to a Wall Street Journal report [wsj.com], Nintendo pushed back the rollout of 64GB game cards until 2019, citing "technical issues" as the problem. Game developers get Switch cards from Nintendo, so this means that they'll have to wait to get game cards that can support big titles.

[...] Nintendo initially attempted to alleviate the storage issue with the Switch's microSD card slot, which can hold an extra 2TB of space. However, 2TB microSD cards aren't available yet, and not every microSD card is the same. Some big titles require high-speed microSD cards to run properly.

While many mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch can support up to 2 TB of microSD storage, the largest currently in production is SanDisk's 400 GB card [soylentnews.org], which currently retails for $250.

CNET: Nintendo Switch was 2017's best gadget. What does it mean for 2018? [cnet.com]

The Verge 2017 tech report card: Nintendo [theverge.com]

Previously: Nintendo to More Than Double Production of Switch; Success Rooted in Wii U's Failure [soylentnews.org]


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