What is Nintendo thinking when it comes to the way memory is managed on the Switch?

[Renton577]

So as most people know 2k18 was just released on the Switch and as you can see its no slouch when it comes to space requirements. The game itself taking up around 22GB which honestly should have been expected. What doesn't make sense to me is the way the data is managed. I've opted to buy a cartridge for every game 10GB and above to save SD card space even though I have a 256GB Micro SD, now this would be fine if all all data were saved on the Micro SD for downloads and saves but as you also know the switch stores save files on the system memory and if you look closely at the Eshop info for the new 2k game you will see where it say save data is 5GB per save file! Like what? Looking into things more and Minecraft takes 2GB for save files and other games usually take around 100MB from what I see, Even though I have an SD card what happens when new AAA titles come out like Doom, Wolfenstien, and Skyrim? If save files look like that with AAA titles and they are restricted to the internal system memory then we will have to start deleting save games which honestly is unacceptable. Deleting a game to save space is one thing, then if you re-download the game the save is usually there but the fact that we may have to start deleting save games? That to me doesnt seem right and makes me wounder what Nintendo is thinking.

[NoxiousOdor]

Even if a save was that big it wouldn't have any downsides for most people. I think most people overwrite their previous saves within the same game so it isn't like you are adding 5gb every time you save. You are just changing the 5gb that is already there. The only time it would be a issue is if you have a ton of games all with save data or if you make a new save every time you save your progress in a game

[Guest]

memory =/= storage 

[Hiitchy]

10 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

Even if a save was that big it wouldn't have any downsides for most people. I think most people overwrite their previous saves within the same game so it isn't like you are adding 5gb every time you save. You are just changing the 5gb that is already there. The only time it would be a issue is if you have a ton of games all with save data or if you make a new save every time you save your progress in a game

This is exactly the issue that the OP is bringing up. If I bought like 50 games and each save file was on average 1.5 to 2gb, I would only be able to play 4-5 games approximately before I had to choose which one to wipe.

 

I don't know if Nintendo allows cloud saves but imho they really should have thought about saving data to the same SD card, encrypt it if they were worried about people hacking or using cheat codes. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Don't blame Nintendo for this problem. Blame the developer. Nintendo didn't go "EA, make your games take up 5GB for save files."

[vanished]

The one advantage to having them on an sd card though is that can be read and backup by a computer.  If they're locked inside the device, well... rip

[NoxiousOdor]

1 hour ago, Hiitchy said:

This is exactly the issue that the OP is bringing up. If I bought like 50 games and each save file was on average 1.5 to 2gb, I would only be able to play 4-5 games approximately before I had to choose which one to wipe.

 

I don't know if Nintendo allows cloud saves but imho they really should have thought about saving data to the same SD card, encrypt it if they were worried about people hacking or using cheat codes. 

I just did some research I didnt realize it only came with 32gb of storage. That makes a lot more sense now. That is hardly enough room for anything and I agree that they should have let you save on the sd card and if they wanted to they could encrypt it. It is still somewhat the devs faults for making their save files so large

[Monkey Dust]

Will it start saving to the SD card when system storage is full? And why is it not saving to the cart?

[Mr.Meerkat]

5 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

And why is it not saving to the cart?

Generally all 3DS games saved onto its SD card so...this isn't anything new?

[linkboy]

The Wii, Wii U and 3DS were all initially hacked either through a web browser exploit or a hacked save file. That's the reason why Nintendo has locked save files to the internal memory and doesn't have a user accessible web browser (the functionality is there, but it doesn't have a way to surf the web).

 

I get why they went the route they did, but I don't agree with it and I wish they allow us to backup our save files to the SD card.

[Squirrel724]

19 hours ago, Monkey Dust said:

Will it start saving to the SD card when system storage is full? And why is it not saving to the cart?

The SD card simply acts as an extension of the internal storage and data will overflow onto the SD card when the internal storage is full. The game carts are read only and cannot be saved to.

[skywake]

If you go into your steam library, right click on a game, go to properties and check the "updates" tab it'll tell you how big the save file is. It'll also show you how much space Valve has given you to store that save in the cloud. Most games Valve gives you ~90MB or so of which you're probably only using ~20MB. Really, a 5GB savefile is ridiculous. I think we should be pointing the finger at EA more than Nintendo. If they're doing this across the board it's going to brake more than just the Switch's setup for managing saves.

On 16/09/2017 at 3:37 PM, Monkey Dust said:

Will it start saving to the SD card when system storage is full? And why is it not saving to the cart?

On the second point there's a very good reason why not. Having saves on the cartridge kinda sucks. If you want to share a game then you have to also worry about whether or not the person will overwrite your save. It also isn't something that would work well with multiple accounts on the one system or cloud saves. The first being something the Switch has and the second being something that is planned.

 

In terms of the SD card? If you put an SD card in your Switch it'll start putting stuff on your SD card instead of internal storage except for saves. If you run out of storage on either it'll automatically delete or "archive" games to make some room except for save data and games with the "prevent auto-archive" but checked. If you fill up your internal storage with just saves? I'm not sure. But the solution would probably be to manually delete your EA Sports save files.....