How the MicroSD Express Support in the Nintendo Switch 2 Could Impact Your Budget: Here’s Why

With the debut of the Nintendo Switch 2 comes some intriguing technical details about the console, not least of which is its requirement for a brand new MicroSD standard: the MicroSD Express. Unfortunately, this upgrade may not be so gentle on your finances. If current product pricing is any indicator, these cards are significantly costlier per gigabyte than many contemporary SSDs. MicroSD Express cards are priced from 20 to 25 cents per GB, while budget SSDs might only set you back 5 to 6 cents per GB. This cost difference is largely due to the inclusion of NVMe and PCIe 3.0 support, features you’d typically find in M.2 SSDs, now incorporated into these new cards.

Taking Sandisk as an example, their MicroSD Express cards start with an MSRP of $49.99 for just 128GB and jump to $64.99 for 256GB. These cards deliver speeds up to 880 MB/s for reading and 480 MB/s for writing, with sustained write speeds at 100 MB/s.

Lexar ups the ante by offering cards with capacities reaching up to 1TB. However, be prepared to dig deep into your pockets, as these larger capacities come with hefty price tags.

For instance, the Lexar Play Pro 1TB MicroSD Express card is priced at a jaw-dropping $199.99, with their 512GB version at $99.99 and 256GB at $49.99. Lexar claims these can achieve read speeds of up to 900 MB/s and write speeds up to 600 MB/s.

Sandisk’s cards price up to $0.39 per gigabyte for the 128GB model, while the 256GB version costs $0.25 per gigabyte. Lexar, however, seems to offer a better deal with all their storage sizes priced at a uniform $0.20 per gigabyte, and appearing to offer better specs.

Storage is a big deal for the Switch 2, perhaps more so than before. The console is launching with a built-in 256GB storage, but there’s a catch. Even if you’re buying physical games, don’t expect to jump straight into the action just by slotting in the cartridge. Some games demand the full download and installation on the system, effectively reducing the cartridge to a mere license key, termed a “Game-Key Card” by Nintendo. This might be an effort by developers to save on cartridge production costs, which are likely to rise with the price of NAND storage.

Consider a game like Street Fighter 6. Buying the cartridge means you’re also looking at an additional 50GB to install from the get-go. The Switch 2’s built-in storage is going to fill up quickly, pushing players towards buying these costly MicroSD cards or managing the annoyance of deleting and redownloading games each time they swap their Game-Key Cards.

Now, regarding the technicalities of the new MicroSD Express standard, it’s a significant upgrade from the UHS-I standard that previous generations of Switch used. Though at a glance, both cards might look similar, they’re quite different under the hood. The SD Association sorts MicroSD Express cards into four classifications based on speed: Class 150, Class 300, Class 450, and Class 600. These numbers represent the minimum read/write speeds in MB/s. Unlike their predecessors, MicroSD Express cards boast 16 or 17 pins, in contrast with the 8 pins of UHS-I cards.

MicroSD Express incorporates NVMe and PCIe 3.0 technology, allowing potential speeds up to 2GB/s with a PCIe 4.0 interface. However, the actual performance of the Switch 2 with these cards remains a bit of a mystery, as the specs we’ve seen don’t reach those theoretical peaks.

Joey Lopez from Lexar expressed excitement in exploring this new frontier, noting their aim to craft memory cards that align with this cutting-edge standard, readying gamers for the next wave of handheld gaming. But until we get the Switch 2 and these MicroSD Express cards in hand for real-world tests, we’re left waiting to see how close they’ve come to fulfilling these promises. In the meantime, don’t miss our first impressions with the Nintendo Switch 2.