It's no secret that of late some developers opt to order a batch of small capacity Switch cartridges and force mandatory downloads on users for games that are large in file size (such as Doom or L.A. Noire), arguably killing the point of physical media. The reason for this is cost as small capacity cartridges cost less than large ones. The good thing about this is that the prices are not too overpriced compared to the prices of those games when they were released on other platforms. The other route would be when developers chose to fit the entire game in a large capacity cartridge without requiring a mandatory download from the eShop. The downside of this is that it results in what is known as "Switch tax", games sold for more to offset the cost of large cartridges. Currently the maximum capacity for Switch cartridges is 32GB.

In any event, games won't become smaller over time and seeing the trend of large PC/PS4/XBone games ported to the Switch, it has to be expected that mandatory downloads for physical media won't go away anytime soon. Especially not since a recent report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that Nintendo has delayed the Roll-Out of 64GB Switch cartridges to 2019 that were originally scheduled for release during the second half of 2018. Apparently Nintendo had some technical issues that impacted the quality of the final media and needs more time to resolve those issues.

The question now for the average joe is whether or not this will impact third-party releases. Developers whose games are larger than 32GB could either wait til 64GB cartridges are available, delaying their releases in the process (although that's very unlikely in my opinion), or ship their games in small capacity cartridges and require a large mandatory download from the eShop. Another question is whether or not developers care at all about 64GB cartridges since they would presumably and significantly cost more than existing ones, making it not worth it for them from a financial standpoint.

What do you think about it? Do you prefer games being shipped in a single cartridge without requiring a large download, no matter the cost, or do you not care if half of the game from a cartridge has to be downloaded as long as the price is reasonable?

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[Kioku]

I love UMD. It was released when flash storage was far more expensive and allowed for the best sound and visuals in a gaming portable, allowing for low game replication costs for Sony, all in a portable that did incredibly well for Sony considering it:

1) cost more than the competing DS
2) packed so much more tech inside, including licensed MPEG4, ushering in a new era of widescreen portable hardware long before anyone else
3) had no backwards compatibility with anything, unlike early DS and DS Lite units, which makes the respectable sales even more impressive

By contrast, DS had horrid sound and visuals that seemed like stone-age technology, due to the use of expensive cartidges necessitating low quality content compromises. Nintendo's 'difference' or unique selling point was their touchscreen. Nintendo don't have any expertise in optical, let alone know how to make an optical drive small & power-efficient and foist it on the masses in a reliable portable like Sony can.

Anyway, I still think the UMD was an excellent choice today. Sony's mistake was calling UMD Universal, and pushing the envelope more than people were willing to pay for the Vita. Subsidizing far more expensive hardware with overpriced proprietary flash storage is so last decade. But I love UMD.

The PSP did well because it offered more functionality. The UMD format wasn't exclusive to games. It had movies as well. The proprietary Memory Stick format was expensive, but wasn't tied strictly to the PSP. There was a true online scene that didn't revolve around friend codes. Power as well. Honestly, UMD is a terrible format by today's standards. It also lead to some loooong load times in a few games.

 

[driverdis]

I love UMD. It was released when flash storage was far more expensive and allowed for the best sound and visuals in a gaming portable, allowing for low game replication costs for Sony, all in a portable that did incredibly well for Sony considering it:

Anyway, I still think the UMD was an excellent choice today. Sony's mistake was calling UMD Universal, and pushing the envelope more than people were willing to pay for the Vita. Subsidizing far more expensive hardware with overpriced proprietary flash storage is so last decade. But I love UMD.

UMD was an interesting choice by Sony, and although it had longer loading times (which the later PSPs helped to cut down), it was cheap to make and could hold a lot of data.

Right now Nintendo has to deal with Flash Memory costs for 64GB of which would be a lot less of an issue if Nintendo would have invested in a UMD like Mini Blu-ray disk rather than flash.

with triple and quad layer Blu-rays, a UMD size disc would be able to hold up to 64GB just fine with the manufacturing costs cut down. considering the size of the Switch, I think it has enough room for a UMD like disc drive without compromising the portability or size of the Switch.

With the memory and Blu-ray discs having fast data thoughput speed, Loading times would not have suffered as much as back in the PSP days since the Switch would easily have more than 32MB of space to cache the disc.