Hardware Here's a Thought...

[LightyKD]

Why aren't switch game cards composed of a Micro SD card and a small "security" chip of some sort? I'd imagine that the price of doing that would be cheaper than a completely proprietary storage solution. Not to mention 64GB Game Cards would solve a lot of the Switch's storage problem. I'm sure i'tt catch a lot of flack for this thread but hell, we have DS and 3DS flash cards. I don't think the idea is that far fetched. I remember the feeling when I had my Acekard years ago. Once SD cards became a norm for my DS games, having multiple DS game cards just seemed silly. What I'm proposing is something of a half step that should suit developers, Nintendo and game collectors alike.

 

[smileyhead]

Because they'd be amazingly easy to exploit.

 

[Pippin666]

Thank god that kid doesn't work at Nintendo.

Pip'

 

[KiiWii]

Didnt GaryOPA mention a switch flash card while talking about stargate? He said its too early to mention mich about but progress is being made.

Nintendo wont do this.

Too cheap, too open, too easy.

 

[DarthDub]

You can put a microsd card inside the Switch already.

 

[NekoMichi]

To add to the aforementioned security exploit point, it would make it much easier for software piracy. This has actually happened before with the Neo Geo X, which had game cartridges that were basically modified SD cards. Users were pretty quickly able to work out how to convert normal off-the-shelf SD cards to game cartridges and even “jailbreak” the console in a similar way.

The other security problem would be that there’s no need to have the entire contents of a game cartridge to have both read and write capabilities, as a standard SD card would provide. Otherwise people could potentially modify the game cartridges to contain unauthorised code (i.e. homebrew) or even malicious code.

Finally, if Nintendo used a modified SD card for games they would probably have to pay a license fee per unit sold, while developing their own proprietary cartridge format means they can do whatever they want with the hardware. [citation needed]

Using standard SD hardware would definitely benefit consumers, you do have a point. However, it would conflict with profitability and security interests.

 

[cearp]

Finally, if Nintendo used a modified SD card for games they would probably have to pay a license fee per unit sold, while developing their own proprietary cartridge format means they can do whatever they want with the hardware.

But didn't gamecube have its disks based on dvd, but not normal dvds, and they didn't have to pay?
Something like that.

 

[NekoMichi]

But didn't gamecube have its disks based on dvd, but not normal dvds, and they didn't have to pay?
Something like that.

Don’t know. I might be wrong on that part.
But I do know that the Wii was capable of playing DVDs but the feature was left out because Nintendo didn’t want to pay license fees.

 

[cearp]

Don’t know. I might be wrong on that part.
But I do know that the Wii was capable of playing DVDs but the feature was left out because Nintendo didn’t want to pay license fees.

Yeah then they removed the possibility in the latest hardware revisions, funny

 

[ov3rkill]

Propriety card is usually the way to go for security purposes. It gets hack sooner or later but at least it will protect the IP especially against the pirates.

 

[BvanBart]

In the end everything can be hacked. Be it exclusive, propriety or whatever. I think the idea of the OP is an nice one in the long run. But to be honest, a Vita solution here for the Switch would be nice.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Yeah then they removed the possibility in the latest hardware revisions, funny

That was more to prevent piracy though. Not that it helped once USB loaders came out. But at least it prevented those flat mod solderless modchips from working, as well as disc loading with cIOS/DVDX.

 

[cearp]

I still remember my wiikey

 

[Jayro]

I don't understand why the Vita has so many card slots on it... One for games, and two external storage cards?

 

[xile6]

Sounds like u just wanna hack the system and get free games.