The Nintendo Switch s biggest failure is a massive opportunity for the future TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. The Nintendo Switch s biggest failure is a massive opportunity for the future By Rhys Wood published 18 July 2022 Storage wars (Image credit: Shutterstock/Vantage_DS) Audio player loading… I love the Switch, to the point where I can forgive many of its shortcomings. Sure, it can't do 4K. It often can't muster a stable performance. It's inundated with terrible ports. Oh, and the online infrastructure could be much, much better. All things worthy of criticism. But they've never been outright deal breakers for me. After all, if I let higher frame rates and resolutions dictate my purchasing habits, I'd be missing out on many of the best Nintendo Switch games around. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the recently released Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, to name just a few. But there's one thing that seriously irks me about the Nintendo Switch. Not just the base console, but also the Nintendo Switch OLED. And that's the downright paltry amount of storage space – something the company will need to address for its future hardware endeavors. Giga-blight (Image credit: Shutterstock/Proxima Studio) The Switch might be an epochal improvement over the Wii U, but it seems like Nintendo wasn't too interested in addressing one of that system's many flaws. The basic, white variant of the Wii U came with a measly 8GB of storage. Only if you were willing to pay more for the Deluxe pack would you get a shiny black console with 32 GB of storage. That's actually where we stand with the base Switch model, too. The handheld hybrid launched in 2017 with just 32GB of storage space. And in 2021, we got the Nintendo Switch OLED, which doubled that number to 64GB. But in the grand scheme of things, that's still far below what the competition is offering. On PS5, you're getting 1TB on both the physical and digital versions. It's a similar story with Microsoft: 1TB on Xbox Series X, and 512GB on Xbox Series S. These can be further bolstered by internal SSDs on PS5, and accessories like the Seagate Storage Expansion Card on Xbox. The latter approach does apply to Switch as well. You can buy extra microSD cards to give your console's storage a much-needed bump. The difference is that the purchase of a microSD card for Switch can feel non-negotiable, especially if you download a lot of games. It's easy to fill out that meager amount of storage much quicker than you'd like. Switch it up (Image credit: Nintendo) So what can Nintendo do to address this issue in future – and should it, given that the price of their consoles would likely rise as a result? I think the answer is a resounding yes here. Nintendo Switch games – especially first party titles and many of the third party ports – have only gotten bigger in size in recent years. Take Xenoblade Chronicles 3, launching at the end of July. At 15GB, it's the largest mainline Xenoblade game to date. And on a base Switch without a microSD card installed, it will eat up just under half of the total storage space available. The equivalent on PS5 would be a game taking up roughly 400 to 500GB of space. Not even storage-hungry games like Call of Duty: Warzone or Horizon Forbidden West can claim to achieve that. Moreover, Nintendo's first party output is only going to get more ambitious with time. We already know that Monolith Soft is working on a gigantic new IP. Similarly, future Zelda titles are likely to surpass even Breath of the Wild 2 in terms of boundary-pushing scope. Nintendo absolutely needs to bring its A game when it comes to storage space on its future consoles, then. And I don't just mean a modest bump up to something like 128GB. When even smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S22 can offer up to 256GB of storage space, Nintendo has no excuse not to bolster its tech. At the bare minimum, I'd love to see Nintendo's next flagship console clock in at least 256GB of storage space. But 512GB or even 1TB would be a real win. Hopefully, an upgrade like that would be matched by other much-requested specs like 4K resolution and support for higher frame rates. Many of us now treat the Switch like an Xbox or PlayStation on the go, and Nintendo needs to do the same. Rhys WoodHardware WriterRhys is Hardware Writer for TechRadar Gaming, and while relatively fresh to the role, he's been writing in a professional capacity for years. A Media, Writing and Production graduate, Rhys has prior experience creating written content for app developers, IT firms, toy sellers and the main TechRadar site. His true passions, though, lie in video games, TV, audio and home entertainment. When Rhys isn't on the clock, you'll usually find him logged into Final Fantasy 14, Halo Infinite or Sea of Thieves. See more Gaming news TechRadar Newsletter Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. MOST POPULARMOST SHARED1You may not have to sell a body part to afford the Nvidia RTX 4090 after all2PC gamers are shunning high-end GPUs – spelling trouble for the Nvidia RTX 40903Beg all you want - these beer game devs will not break the laws of physics for you 41000TB SSDs could become mainstream by 2030 as Samsung plans 1000-layer NAND5Micro-LED 4K TVs aren't trying to kill OLED, they're aiming at projectors1We finally know what 'Wi-Fi' stands for - and it's not what you think2Brave is about to solve one of the most frustrating problems with browsing the web3She-Hulk episode 8 just confirmed Netflix's Daredevil TV show is canon in the MCU4A whole new breed of SSDs is about to break through5Logitech's latest webcam and headset want to relieve your work day frustrations Technology Magazines (opens in new tab)● (opens in new tab)The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviewsFrom$12.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab) Other versions of this page are available with specific content for the following regions:Deutschland