When Nintendo announced the Switch 2, it said users would require cards based on the microSD Express standard to expand device memory. Soon after this announcement, both online and physical retail sellers were cleared out, with some store staff telling Hermitage Akihabara in Japan [machine translated] that they sold more than 337 cards per hour. This surprised everyone, especially as microSD Express cards are far more expensive than regular microSD cards.
You'll pay more than double for microSD Express
The vanilla Lexar 1TB Play microSD card has a regular price of $129.99 on Amazon, but is discounted to $69.99 at the time of writing. This card has a read speed of up to 160 MB/s and a write speed of up to 100 MB/s, which is quite respectable but still not as fast as internal device storage. On the other hand, the microSD Express version of this card has a far faster 900 MB/s read speed and 600 MB/s write speed, making it more than five times quicker than the old standard. It comes at a price, though — the Lexar 1TB Play Pro microSD Express card has an original price of $199.99 on Amazon, and even though it’s on sale at $172.63 at the time of writing, it’s still more than double the price of the non-Express version.
No scalping detected
But despite the microSD Express requirement for the Switch 2 hurting the wallets of Nintendo’s fans, it still sold like hotcakes soon after Nintendo’s announcement. This isn’t a case of massive scalping, though, as it’s reported that as much as 80% of the buyers only bought one microSD Express card, with the highest number of items bought by a user reportedly limited to just three. So, most of these shoppers are likely end-users who bought these expensive expansion cards in anticipation of the Switch 2.
The microSD Express standard has been around since 2019, but it hasn’t received wide adoption, likely because of how expensive it was compared to non-Express microSD cards (for those who need portable storage) and SSDs (for those who need a fixed larger capacity). Many game consoles actually let you increase their internal memory by replacing the SSD, but this isn't as convenient. At a minimum, you will have to pop the backplate and make some configuration changes to use new SSD storage.
Since Nintendo doesn’t like it when users tweak the hardware on its consoles, the most user-friendly route of expanding the Switch 2’s storage that will perform as fast as internal storage is to use microSD Express cards. This might be a crucial upgrade to the new console, too, as it’s getting several new AAA titles, which could easily overwhelm its 256 GB internal storage. That way, you can have all your favorite game titles readily available on your Switch 2 anytime.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
