Got a new Nintendo Switch Recently? Don't Buy a Cheap MicroSD Card!
After Christmas, I wanted to buy a Nintendo Switch so I can play Breath of the Wild. I wanted to buy a highest capacity MicroSDXC card for Nintendo Swtich that I can afford. So I looked through Amazon and I saw a 512GB MicroSD card for less than $15. The description mentioned Nintendo Switch, so I went ahead and bought the MicroSD card. Once I have a Nintendo Switch in hand, I went ahead and inserted a MicroSD card and decided to install The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Later on, I wanted to try Skyward Sword and the data corruption happened. I downloaded the game again and same thing happened again. I then reformatted the MicroSD card and tried to install Skyward Sword, then Breath of the Wild, but then the data corruption happened again as well. This led me to believe that the MicroSD card I bought can only fit one large game at a time. I am able to download small games such as Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest III, but that's about it.
Just because the description says "Nintendo Switch" does not mean it is compatible with Nintendo Switch. There's no review of the card mentioning "Nintendo Switch" until I wrote a review. If you do a search for "Nintendo Switch" (without quotes) in the product page, I am the only one who wrote the review of Nintendo Switch and I gave it a one-star rating. No one has ever written a review of the 512GB MicroSD card for Nintendo Switch except me.
So, I went with a SanDisk 256GB MicroSD card. Yes, it's more expensive, but the truth is, I have not had any problems with two large games and a couple of small games that was downloaded into my SanDisk MicroSD card and I gave it a 5-star rating for that. I wanted the largest capacity I can get, but at the end of the day, I think 256GB is more than adequate for purchasing console-exclusive games for Nintendo Switch.
One game that is not console-exclusive is Dragon Quest XI S, which is available for both Steam for PC and Nintendo Switch. I already have Dragon Quest XI S in my Steam library, so I do not see myself purchasing the game for Nintendo Switch. I have my Switch docked and the dock is hooked up to my home theater receiver, so I can play games on a large screen monitor. And yes, my computer is hooked up to my receiver via HDMI, so I use my computer all the time. If I want to play games that are exclusive to Nintendo Switch, I can switch my receiver to Nintendo Switch. So anyway, I don't care for portability aspect of Nintendo Switch because the screen size is not suitable for my visual impairment.
Should I have went with a 400GB MicroSD card? Yes. However, I've had to ask myself this question: am I going to play games in Nintendo Switch that is available for Steam? The answer is no, which I already covered that in the previous paragraph. So it's only going to be console-exclusive games such as Mario, Zelda, Pokémon, and just about any games that are not available in Steam. If I factor in games that take up to 16GB in disk space, I can only see myself playing 15 large games, which is way more than enough for me. Of course, with a 400GB MicroSD card I would have bumped up to 24 large games. However, I would be looking at spending hundreds of dollars in games before I run out of space in a MicroSD card. I have already spent $120 for two large Zelda games and even Link's Awakening is another $60. Yikes. So yeah, 256GB is more than enough for me for now.
With all that said, you get what you pay for when it comes to pairing a MicroSD card with Nintendo Switch. Don't skimp on a price of a MicroSD card just because you get a much higher capacity for your new Nintendo Switch. Now go play some Zelda games and have fun!
Article published: 2022-01-21 10:34
Categories: Entertainment, Gaming