Physical version of L.A. Noire needs download

Physical version of L.A. Noire needs download

Third party games seem to be a separate thing on the Nintendo Switch, at least when it comes to how big they are. NBA2K18 was the first game for which you have to download a large part of the game as an update to play everything with your physical release.

This already caused a whole discussion on the web regarding cartridge size of Nintendo Switch titles.

Nintendo had already indicated that there would be more titles with such a situation. The next thing in that row thus seems to be L.A. Noire by Rockstar Games. The game is 29GB in size, but it does not use a 32GB cartridge but a 16GB cartridge.

The reason indicated is that the cost of production would be much higher.

Really people?

Personally, we believe that this is still a very strange choice especially if we look at the reason. Is a larger cartridge more expensive, sure it is. But you are putting your product in a shopping window for millions of potential customers. That alone should remove your consideration for the more expensive costs. But on the other hand, we also understand that the Nintendo Switch still must prove it’s track record when it comes to third party games.

Although titles like FIFA 18, Ultra Street Fighter II – The Final Challengers and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (the latter may not be fair) have shown how well thing can go with such titles, that might be too little to ensure that the parties take the “risk”.

Let’s hope that will change in the future because the Nintendo Switch’s internal storage with 32Gb is not huge either. On a sidenote 128GB microSD cards are not mega expensive, but it would make things a lot easier.

Situation L.A. Noire

Now you need to download 14GB of data for L.A. Noire after you purchased the physical version. This can basically fit in the internal memory of the Switch itself, but it should not be filled with other games, pictures, videos or save data. Otherwise, you simply must buy a microSD card.

But imagine you go digital for L.A. Noire; then you are more or less forced to purchase a microSD. Because the game is 29GB which is larger than your Switch internal memory (because it has some storage in use for the Nintendo Switch operating system, updates, etc.).

In short, we hope that a solution will be found for such situations in the future. Or that the prices of larger microSD cards (the Nintendo Switch is going to support them up to 3TB) will become a reality.