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The Nintendo Switch 2's Biggest Problem Is Already Storage

WIRED

10 hours ago

WIRED

The Nintendo Switch 2's Biggest Problem Is Already Storage

In 2025, 256 gigabytes just isn't enough, and tacking on more storage isn't as easy as it sounds. Photo-Illustration:All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. The Nintendo Switch 2 is fantastic—already a contender for the biggest gaming hardware launch of 2025. I'm still playing it daily—monkeying around in Donkey Kong Bananza , enjoying tearing up its destructible game worlds, whether I'm playing on the big screen or tucked up in bed with handheld mode. Unfortunately, just two months on from release, my console's drive is already full. Since my copy of Bananza is digital, I've had to start juggling game installs to experience the great ape's latest adventure. I'm probably an outlier in having maxed out capacity already, but storage anxiety is an issue that's likely to worsen for many users over the Switch 2's lifespan, and there don't appear to be any easy fixes on the horizon. Storage Wars At a glance, the Switch 2's storage situation looks rosy. The console itself comes with 256 GB, which is eight times more than the original Switch's paltry 32 GB and four times the 64 GB of the Switch OLED. System software on Switch 2 is impressively small, using a smidge over 6 GB, leaving owners with a generous-sounding ~249 GB. The problem is that 249 GB ain't what it used to be, and the Switch 2 demands you use far more of that storage than the original Switch did. The latest generation of performance, such as 4K HDR output, is necessary as Nintendo competes against both home console rivals Sony and Microsoft, and the growing number of handheld gaming PCs aiming for the Switch's portable gaming crown. However, improvements mean bigger installs for Switch 2 native games, eating up more and more of that precious space. While Nintendo has mastered getting big results from small game sizes—open-world racer Mario Kart World is 24 GB digitally, while Donkey Kong Bananza clocks in at a mere 8.7 GB—other developers aren't as trim. JRPG Bravely Default HD , a remaster of a Nintendo 3DS game, eats up 11 GB (albeit likely down to its significant original mini games that use the Switch 2's mouse mode controls), while co-op adventure Split Fiction demands a staggering 69.2 GB—over a quarter of the internal storage for that one game alone. If you think that sounds like an incentive to embrace physical media instead, saving space for digital-only games … well, you'd be right. Unfortunately, on Switch 2, that's not the option it once was. A Key Problem Photograph: Julian Chokkattu The issue is exacerbated by Nintendo's introduction of GameKey Cards for some physical games. These don't have games installed on them, merely a bearer token that allows users to download a game digitally while requiring the cartridge to be inserted to play it. Although at the time of writing, Nintendo itself hasn't released any of its first-party games in the GameKey Card format, almost every third-party game released for the Switch 2 has opted for GKCs ( Cyberpunk 2077 is a notable exception; the entire game is on the cartridge). I maintain that GameKey Cards are a significant improvement for collectors over the original Switch's code-in-a-box releases. GKCs can be traded in or sold, since access to the game is tied to the cartridge rather than a user account, and they don't leave collectors with an empty, useless case after a single-use download code has been redeemed. But the format's inescapable drawback is that it demands yet more of the Switch 2's already over-stretched storage. Switch 2 cartridges that can house game data are limited to 64 GB, further compounding the issue. Even if publisher EA wanted to release Split Fiction on a cartridge—its "physical" release is code-in-a-box, not even a GKC—the mammoth install size couldn't fit on the cards available. Larger cards could help here, but given the bespoke design, they may prove prohibitively expensive to produce. Plus, if third parties aren't using current 64-GB cards—chonkers such as Hitman: World of Assassination (61 GB), Street Fighter 6 (48.2 GB), and Yakuza 0: Director's Cut (45.3 GB) could all fit, but instead are released as GKCs—is there any point in doubling the size and cost? As it stands, players have no alternative but to bid adieu to even more storage if any of those games take their fancy. The Backward Compatibility Compromise Photograph: Julian Chokkattu One of the best things about the Switch 2 is its near-universal backward compatibility. Here, physical games have an edge, as Switch 1 carts have the actual game data, while digitally owned Switch 1 titles claim more virtual real estate alongside ballooning Switch 2 titles. Physical Switch 1 cartridges aren't immune to data bloat on the Switch 2, though. While many Switch 1 games see a performance boost running on Switch 2, benefiting from faster load times and improved frame rates, Nintendo is releasing upgrade packs for key titles—think of them as optional downloadable remasters. If you want The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild to look its absolute best on Switch 2, that pack demands 9.7 GB of space, even if you have your original physical copy of the game. The fully digital release leaps from around 14 to 24 GB with the upgrade, or roughly 10 percent of the Switch 2's storage. Beyond original Switch games and upgrades gobbling up precious storage, the Switch 2 also sees the addition of GameCube titles to the retro library available to Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers. Like the classic games available for earlier consoles such as the NES, SNES, or Game Boy, these are all packaged in one launcher, with every game in the respective collection installed at once. That's fine for the SNES collection—with around 80 titles crammed into a barely-noticeable 267 MB bundle, who cares if there's a bunch you'll never play? Yet with just four titles presently available ( F-Zero, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, SoulCalibur II , and Super Mario Strikers ), NSO GameCube is already a 6-GB commitment. Original GameCube discs could hold just shy of 1.5 GB, so each addition is going to see that launcher demand ever more space, and each unwanted game could prevent you from installing something else you want to play. While this only affects NSO subscribers who use the GameCube library, the freedom to choose which GameCube games get installed would be a huge help. The Problem With the Solution The good news is that Switch 2 still allows users to expand storage via microSD cards. Problem solved—just whack a massive capacity card in, right? Not quite. Switch 2 only supports microSD Express format cards. There's good reason for this—the new standard offers much faster data read and write speeds, allowing games to load faster—but the rule causes problems. One is cost. MicroSD Express cards cost more per GB of storage than their predecessors. At the time of writing, a SanDisk 128 GB card is $17, while its Switch 2-compatible microSD Express format card is $54 for the same amount of storage—a 3X premium. Another is card capacities. There are a handful of 1-terabyte microSD Express cards on the market, but supplies are vanishingly low, and prices are astronomical. Although you can technically use multiple microSD cards with your console, Nintendo advises against it, so swapping several smaller cards around isn't an option either. More confusingly, the SD Express format only refers to speed, not capacity, which has its own standards. Most microSD cards you're likely to buy, whether they're in the Express speed format or not, are "SD eXtended Capacity" standard, or SDXC. These can theoretically hold a maximum of 2 TB of data, though the largest legitimate card you're likely to find on sale is 1.5 TB. However, in 2018, the SD Association—the industry body that sets standards for SD memory cards—introduced SD Ultra Capacity, or SDUC. This supports capacities up to a staggering 128 TB, 'regardless of form factor, either micro or full size, or interface type including […] SD Express.' There are no SDUC cards on the market at all yet, so we're a long, long way from being able to slap "even" an 8-TB card in your Switch 2 and install everything you could dream of. In theory, though, surely this means you'll one day be able to do just that? Again, not quite. Beyond the microSD Express requirement for speed , the Switch 2 only supports cards up to 2 TB in capacity . For now, this is a nonissue—the largest microSD Express cards on the market are half that at 1 TB, and all are in the SDXC format for storage, which maxes out at 2 TB anyway. What's less clear is whether the Switch 2 will support SDUC cards when they eventually enter the marketplace. If it does, a firmware update might lift that 2-TB cap. If not, 2 TB of SDXC is the Switch 2's ultimate storage fate. Nintendo did not respond to our request for comment. There are some reasons for the storage anxious to be optimistic, though. The mere existence and huge success of the Switch 2 will see more consumers demand microSD Express cards, eventually driving prices down and capacities up, at least to the SDXC standard's 2-TB limit. For most players, that amount of storage is realistically enough for all but the most covetous data hoarders. Consumer backlash could also push more third-party publishers into releasing their physical games on cartridges, rather than as Game-Key Cards, reducing storage demands. Even simpler, if Nintendo provided more control to the user—choosing which GameCube games to install or officially supporting swapping microSD cards—players themselves could easily manage their digital collections. In the meantime, as Switch 2 digital libraries grow, there's only one option: getting used to juggling installs for the foreseeable future.

Apple's $275 Billion China Bet Is Now A Major Risk

Forbes

a day ago

Forbes

Apple's $275 Billion China Bet Is Now A Major Risk

Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year. By most estimates, nine in ten are made in China. Many of the components in Apple products are made, sourced, and assembled in China. The tech giant reported robust earnings for the three months to June, but the future is cloudy. It has been for some time because of Apple's reliance on China and the increasing tension between China and the US. Tariffs are one manifestation of the growing geopolitical strife. Chief executive Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call that tariffs had already cost Apple $800 million in the previous quarter, and may add $1.1bn in costs to the next quarter. But it is not just the costs that tariffs will add to the Apple supply chain. Apple has nurtured Chinese companies whose products are now highly competitive with the tech giant. In the book Apple in China, the author Patrick McGee reports that Apple pledged in 2016 that over the following five years, it would invest more than $275 billion in China. That pledge was exceeded. The sophisticated supply chain Apple built in the country, with suppliers that Apple nurtured, is now being leveraged by Chinese companies, notably Huawei, to build sophisticated electronics products. Huawei's Mate XT is a more expensive phone with alluring features than the iPhone. Apple isn't expected to match these product capabilities until 2017. Apple has gone from leadership in design in this market, with the margins to match, to having serious competition. How could Apple have been so stupid? A fundamental concept of risk management is that you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Patrick McGee explains how this came to be in his outstanding book. McGee interviewed over 200 people, mostly Apple employees, to provide insights on this 'famously secretive company.' Apple's Historic Supply Chain Historically, Apple manufactured its own products across several regions. In 1983, Apple opened a highly automated plant in Fremont, California, to produce the first Macintosh computers. Apple established a presence in Europe with a plant in Cork, Ireland. This plant, which opened in 1980, later manufactured customized Macintosh computers for European markets. This is the historic way of hedging your bets and managing risk. Apple understood this principle. But as contract manufacturing emerged as an alternative to a company owning its own manufacturing plants, Apple experimented with this model and achieved positive outcomes. The theory behind contract manufacturing is that companies should focus on what they do best, their core competencies. In Apple's case, that was design. Initially, they were working with American firms and had plants in the US. But Taiwanese headquartered Foxconn proved to have better capabilities than its US rivals, and Foxconn won an increasing share of Apple's final assembly business. You can still practice effective risk management using contract manufacturers with plants in different regions of the world. Foxconn, at Apple's behest, did experiment with manufacturing in other regions of the world in addition to China. But Foxconn, a tremendously harsh taskmaster when it comes to their labor force, struggled to achieve the same level of quality, cost, and scalability anywhere but in their facilities in mainland China. Foxconn then committed to relying on production based in China. As Foxconn delivered better results than its competitors, they gained a larger and larger share of Apple's business. Apple's Strategy in Procurement Apple does not believe in win/win procurement or vested outsourcing. McGee points out that the iPhone accounts for fewer than 20% of smartphones sold globally, yet it garners more than 80% of industry profits. 'In no other market does a minority player command this kind of dominance.' 'Insofar as this statistic was discussed at all, it was chalked up to Apple's brand appeal.' This is not entirely true, says McGee. Apple was able to get suppliers to work for a pittance. As the design leader, suppliers came to believe that other electronics OEMs would copy the cutting-edge features in Apple phones and that they would be the leading contenders to win deals with Apple's competitors. These deals would command much higher margins. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn was the first to come to this conclusion. They bet big on this model. And they grew to be the world's largest contract manufacturer based on this bet. A Different Approach to Contract Manufacturing Companies can differentiate their products in different ways. Differentiation can be based on price, a broad set of product choices, service, or market-leading product capabilities. Being on the cutting edge of design is how Apple has always differentiated itself. This led to a fundamentally different kind of supply chain for Apple. Apple's electronics rivals sell a limited number of units across dozens of different models per year. The follow-the-leader strategy employed by these companies was based on using standardized parts with wider tolerances. 'But Apple was different,' McGee wrote. 'Apple's product portfolio remained radically simplified. Even by 2015, Apple was only releasing two new iPhones a year. They were hand crafting luxury phones but doing it in mass market quantities. In their search for suppliers, Apple gravitated toward quality, not price. To reach that quality, Apple had to come up with new processes to make the phones; but until Apple chose a new design these processes wouldn't exist. So it had to work far more intimately with suppliers.' This supplier intimacy model included designing and purchasing the equipment that the suppliers used. This is very different from standard contract manufacturing, where the contract manufacturer purports to have better manufacturing capabilities than the companies they work for, and their clients take a hands-off approach to managing production. 'Apple took extraordinary control over its suppliers to ensure it was getting the appropriate prices,' McGee explained. 'It demanded access to every detail about the suppliers' operating costs, from the wages of its workers and the cost of its dormitories to the bill of materials and expense of the machinery.' Apple also procured components on behalf of the suppliers. 'In fact, Apple often had a better sense of the supplier's operation costs than the supplier itself.' And as Foxconn concentrated on manufacturing in China, an industrial cluster of suppliers would grow up around these plants. Apple engineers would teach these suppliers, competing suppliers for different components, how to do quality manufacturing on a huge scale. China Subsidized Manufacturing in China Foxconn concentrated on manufacturing in China not just because of the low wages of the Chinese workers, but because the state subsidized and promoted export-led production in numerous ways. If you want to build a new factory in the US or Europe, obtaining the necessary building permits and complying with other regulations can take years. In China, authorities could make this happen in months. China would give Foxconn and some of the suppliers the land on which the factories would be built and then build the road infrastructure at no cost to Foxconn or their suppliers. Initially, China even bought new machine tools for companies like Foxconn. Local regions often lacked the necessary workers. China facilitated getting these workers from other, poorer regions of the nation. Are there rules about the number of hours workers are allowed to work, overtime, or environmental compliance? China prioritized building a sophisticated manufacturing base over the enforcement of these pesky regulations. Apple Has Been Captured by China McGee concludes that for Apple to extricate itself from production in China will be tremendously difficult. Suppliers with the requisite skills don't exist in other regions, and there is no guarantee that China will permit its indigenous suppliers to produce outside the country. The Chinese government can also make diversification painful. Beijing has deployed a number of tactics against other companies to make this point. Electricity suddenly becomes available for only a few hours a day. Raw materials can be stopped before they arrive at the factory. McGee concludes that there is no way Apple could diversify from China in any meaningful way within the next five years. 'It's just impossible.'

Forbes

a day ago

Forbes

How Could Apple Have Been So Stupid?

Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year. By most estimates, nine in ten are made in China. Many of the components in Apple products are made, sourced, and assembled in China. The tech giant reported robust earnings for the three months to June, but the future is cloudy. It has been for some time because of Apple's reliance on China and the increasing tension between China and the US. Tariffs are one manifestation of the growing geopolitical strife. Chief executive Tim Cook told analysts on a conference call that tariffs had already cost Apple $800 million in the previous quarter, and may add $1.1bn in costs to the next quarter. But it is not just the costs that tariffs will add to the Apple supply chain. Apple has nurtured Chinese companies whose products are now highly competitive with the tech giant. In the book Apple in China, the author Patrick McGee reports that Apple pledged in 2016 that over the following five years, it would invest more than $275 billion in China. That pledge was exceeded. The sophisticated supply chain Apple built in the country, with suppliers that Apple nurtured, is now being leveraged by Chinese companies, notably Huawei, to build sophisticated electronics products. Huawei's Mate XT is a more expensive phone with alluring features than the iPhone. Apple isn't expected to match these product capabilities until 2017. Apple has gone from leadership in design in this market, with the margins to match, to having serious competition. How could Apple have been so stupid? A fundamental concept of risk management is that you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Patrick McGee explains how this came to be in his outstanding book. McGee interviewed over 200 people, mostly Apple employees, to provide insights on this 'famously secretive company.' Apple's Historic Supply Chain Historically, Apple manufactured its own products across several regions. In 1983, Apple opened a highly automated plant in Fremont, California, to produce the first Macintosh computers. Apple established a presence in Europe with a plant in Cork, Ireland. This plant, which opened in 1980, later manufactured customized Macintosh computers for European markets. This is the historic way of hedging your bets and managing risk. Apple understood this principle. But as contract manufacturing emerged as an alternative to a company owning its own manufacturing plants, Apple experimented with this model and achieved positive outcomes. The theory behind contract manufacturing is that companies should focus on what they do best, their core competencies. In Apple's case, that was design. Initially, they were working with American firms and had plants in the US. But Taiwanese headquartered Foxconn proved to have better capabilities than its US rivals, and Foxconn won an increasing share of Apple's final assembly business. You can still practice effective risk management using contract manufacturers with plants in different regions of the world. Foxconn, at Apple's behest, did experiment with manufacturing in other regions of the world in addition to China. But Foxconn, a tremendously harsh taskmaster when it comes to their labor force, struggled to achieve the same level of quality, cost, and scalability anywhere but in their facilities in mainland China. Foxconn then committed to relying on production based in China. As Foxconn delivered better results than its competitors, they gained a larger and larger share of Apple's business. Apple's Strategy in Procurement Apple does not believe in win/win procurement or vested outsourcing. McGee points out that the iPhone accounts for fewer than 20% of smartphones sold globally, yet it garners more than 80% of industry profits. 'In no other market does a minority player command this kind of dominance.' 'Insofar as this statistic was discussed at all, it was chalked up to Apple's brand appeal.' This is not entirely true, says McGee. Apple was able to get suppliers to work for a pittance. As the design leader, suppliers came to believe that other electronics OEMs would copy the cutting-edge features in Apple phones and that they would be the leading contenders to win deals with Apple's competitors. These deals would command much higher margins. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn was the first to come to this conclusion. They bet big on this model. And they grew to be the world's largest contract manufacturer based on this bet. A Different Approach to Contract Manufacturing Companies can differentiate their products in different ways. Differentiation can be based on price, a broad set of product choices, service, or market-leading product capabilities. Being on the cutting edge of design is how Apple has always differentiated itself. This led to a fundamentally different kind of supply chain for Apple. Apple's electronics rivals sell a limited number of units across dozens of different models per year. The follow-the-leader strategy employed by these companies was based on using standardized parts with wider tolerances. 'But Apple was different,' McGee wrote. 'Apple's product portfolio remained radically simplified. Even by 2015, Apple was only releasing two new iPhones a year. They were hand crafting luxury phones but doing it in mass market quantities. In their search for suppliers, Apple gravitated toward quality, not price. To reach that quality, Apple had to come up with new processes to make the phones; but until Apple chose a new design these processes wouldn't exist. So it had to work far more intimately with suppliers.' This supplier intimacy model included designing and purchasing the equipment that the suppliers used. This is very different from standard contract manufacturing, where the contract manufacturer purports to have better manufacturing capabilities than the companies they work for, and their clients take a hands-off approach to managing production. 'Apple took extraordinary control over its suppliers to ensure it was getting the appropriate prices,' McGee explained. 'It demanded access to every detail about the suppliers' operating costs, from the wages of its workers and the cost of its dormitories to the bill of materials and expense of the machinery.' Apple also procured components on behalf of the suppliers. 'In fact, Apple often had a better sense of the supplier's operation costs than the supplier itself.' And as Foxconn concentrated on manufacturing in China, an industrial cluster of suppliers would grow up around these plants. Apple engineers would teach these suppliers, competing suppliers for different components, how to do quality manufacturing on a huge scale. China Subsidized Manufacturing in China Foxconn concentrated on manufacturing in China not just because of the low wages of the Chinese workers, but because the state subsidized and promoted export-led production in numerous ways. If you want to build a new factory in the US or Europe, obtaining the necessary building permits and complying with other regulations can take years. In China, authorities could make this happen in months. China would give Foxconn and some of the suppliers the land on which the factories would be built and then build the road infrastructure at no cost to Foxconn or their suppliers. Initially, China even bought new machine tools for companies like Foxconn. Local regions often lacked the necessary workers. China facilitated getting these workers from other, poorer regions of the nation. Are there rules about the number of hours workers are allowed to work, overtime, or environmental compliance? China prioritized building a sophisticated manufacturing base over the enforcement of these pesky regulations. Apple Has Been Captured by China McGee concludes that for Apple to extricate itself from production in China will be tremendously difficult. Suppliers with the requisite skills don't exist in other regions, and there is no guarantee that China will permit its indigenous suppliers to produce outside the country. The Chinese government can also make diversification painful. Beijing has deployed a number of tactics against other companies to make this point. Electricity suddenly becomes available for only a few hours a day. Raw materials can be stopped before they arrive at the factory. McGee concludes that there is no way Apple could diversify from China in any meaningful way within the next five years. 'It's just impossible.'

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The Nintendo Switch 2's Biggest Problem Is Already Storage

Apple's $275 Billion China Bet Is Now A Major Risk

How Could Apple Have Been So Stupid?

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The Nintendo Switch 2's Biggest Problem Is Already Storage

Apple's $275 Billion China Bet Is Now A Major Risk

How Could Apple Have Been So Stupid?

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