Massive game install sizes and the diminishing role of physical media continue to be frustrating. This time around, Final Fantasy VII Remake’s Switch 2 “physical version” is in the crosshairs. A “Game-Key Card,” Remake’s physical Switch 2 release contains no data itself but will initiate a massive download that’ll Kirby up a ton of the Switch 2’s otherwise generous built-in storage capacity.
Despite having a pretty-looking case design, FF7R will ship on Switch 2 with a card that merely serves as a physical license to download a whopping 90GB (h/t Eurogamer), which is around a third of the spacious (or so we thought) 256GB storage capacity of the Switch 2. But as Switch 2 connoisseurs will point out, Square Enix probably didn’t have much choice. The maximum size of an actual physical Switch 2 game is only 64GB. While file compression can work wonders, FF7R with its Intergrade expansion is just too damn big to fit on a cart.
As our comrades at Eurogamer wonder, however, is this Nintendo’s fault for “not offering larger game cards?”
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I’m going to actually say yes to that question. After all, the Switch 2 is clearly making a play to be the premiere place to go for AAA experiences on handhelds–and it’s got the horsepower to do it, as we’ve seen with Star Wars Outlaws and even Cyberpunk 2077.
At the time of this writing, one can buy a 256GB SD card for peanuts (if peanuts is just $25 to you), so why are the Switch 2’s carts limited to just 64GB? It feels like an arbitrary decision that, if Nintendo was invested in physical media and the ability to play a game on a dedicated handheld device without any internet connection whatsoever, it would have made efforts to solve–especially for ambitious (and very good!) games like FF7R.
And let’s be honest, 90GB isn’t uniquely large when it comes to AAA games. It’s early days for the Switch 2, so what’s this problem gonna look like as games only continue to bloom in size?