now if they could make the console not just for cartridges but also with discs, then it would make game key cards 100% sense
Having explored the potential room to work with in the Switch 2, it might be possible that they could have squeezed in a PSP-like disc storage system. A PSP game disc, the UMD (Universal Media Disc), could store up to 1.8 GB on a dual-layer disc.
A UMD is a 60 mm optical disc with 0.9 GB per layer / 1.8 GB dual-layer in the original format. A standard Blu-ray is 25 GB per layer on a 120 mm disc, and current Blu-ray-family media already exists at 100 GB (triple-layer). So, if you scale modern Blu-ray-class density down to the UMD's smaller usable area, you land at roughly 5 GB per layer (5 GB might be optimistic). So you're looking at 15GB storage at most.
hear me out, company makes a big game that is like 100gb of storage, they can fit it on a disc for tv mode, but it's hard for them to produce cartridges for handheld mode, so instead they would use a game key card, it's instead a cloud cartridge you can play after downloading the main game with the disc and inserting the cartridge for some small data or smth and BOOM, you can play the disc game cloudy on the handheld mode
If you're suggesting it uses full-sized discs on the dock. Could use Blu-rays and a GameKey card. But that seems obnoxious if you happened to lose one or the other. I'm not convinced it wouldn't need to be installed on the Switch 2 itself to run.
- Gamekey card probably costs around $5 per unit.
- Single-layer: BD25, $5.75 per unit.
- Dual-layer: BD50, $6.50 per unit.
- Triple-layer: BD100, $7.25 per unit.
Disc prices are based on a quote I had last year from local disc press authoring at low volume, including full case, and excluding mastering costs.
Sorry if my first take is shit im no tech guy (kinda), but what do you think?
Ignoring the increased prices for the Switch 2, regardless of which way you do it, I don't think the UMD-style one offers tangible benefits, as for making it part of the dock, full-sized discs instead, I don't think publishers would like the pricing. From a user perspective, no idea.
While others have suggested the prices of storage media have been a problem for the Switch's carts, they make use of XtraROM, which isn't affected by the supply issues currently in the industry. The memory technology itself is quite expensive, but it does some things better than alternatives; it has better data retention/avoids bit rot better than typical NAND. It has a number of features to perform error correction, can self-refresh (as long as you power up the carts at least every ten years), has both very low and high temperature tolerances.
