There’s widespread anticipation for Nintendo to release a successor to the Switch in the first quarter of the upcoming year. A key concern revolves around the storage choice for the new hardware. While the current Switch supports various microSD cards with a minimum transfer speed of 60 MB/s, if Nintendo intends to elevate their game standards, this might prove insufficient. On the other hand, utilizing M.2 NVMe SSDs, as seen in next-gen consoles and the Steam Deck, could pose challenges due to potential heat and power issues, especially if Nintendo aims to maintain the slim Switch form factor.
A potential solution might lie in Samsung’s recently unveiled SD Express microSD card series. Starting with a 256 GB variant later this year and followed by a 1 TB option, these cards boast impressive 800 MB/s transfer speeds. Notably, Samsung discreetly reveals in their press release that these cards originated from a “successful collaboration with a customer to create a custom product.”
While SD Express technology has existed for some time, its uptake has been sluggish, primarily due to cost and the absence of a compelling product requiring a middle ground between current microSD cards and SSDs. The impetus for its advancement came from a customer seeking a particular solution, fueling speculation that Nintendo, with the anticipated Switch 2, might be the ideal match for these innovative cards.
Should Samsung’s latest SD Express technology find its place in the Switch 2, the anticipated 800 MB/s transfer speeds would mark a substantial leap, around 10 times faster than the original Switch. This enhancement could potentially lead to nearly instant loading times for backward compatible games. While the 800 MB/s falls short of the PS5’s SSD speed at 5,500 MB/s, if the Switch 2 is targeting power and visual fidelity akin to the PS4, the full SSD speeds may not be essential.
“For the first time in the industry, Samsung has introduced a new high-performance microSD card based on the SD Express interface. The development was the result of a successful collaboration with a customer to create a custom product.”