There’s Already a Game Too Big to Install on the Nintendo Switch

With less than 28GB of usable memory, the Nintendo Switch is already proving inadequate for installing some games.

The good news: the Nintendo Switch does not require you to install physical copies of titles before they are playable. The bad news: there’s a good chance it will not be possible anyway for some titles. Already in Japan, the hefty Dragon Quest Heroes I & II double pack has proved too large for the drive that comes standard with Nintendo’s newest console.

While most titles seem to sit between one and five gigabytes in size, even the first-party Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild asks for about half of the total hard drive space on offer to install it. If you run out of space, you’ll need to purchase a separate MicroSD card. That means if you want to take advantage of the additional games and DLC to be made available in Nintendo’s eShop, you’re almost certainly in for an additional investment above and beyond

That means if you want to take advantage of the additional games and DLC to be made available in Nintendo’s eShop, you’re almost certainly in for an additional investment above and beyond the Switch’s $300 price tag.

Similar problems didn’t hamper the Nintendo Wii’s over 100 million units sold, though the Wii U struggled out of the gate with a model that offered the same 32GB the company is offering with the Switch — an amount that was just barely adequate, even for the time. Almost 5 years later, it’s even less likely to get a free pass from consumers.

Despite its struggles, the Nintendo Switch presale numbers are looking very healthy, and Nintendo is standing by a prediction that they’ll move 2 million consoles within the Switch’s first month of release. Once the core group of long-term fans have been sated, however, it remains to be seen how the larger market will react.

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