According to online gaming publication Kotaku the cartridges for Nintendo’s forthcoming 3DS console can hold up to 8GB of storage space, but it’s rumoured that Nintendo are currently capping the games at 2GB.
Nintendo…..WHHYYYYY?!?!?!
Hopefully they are only limiting early games. And I seriously hope they aren’t using the extra space for tight security software like Microsoft does with xbox harddrives.
Just think with 8 gb, you could make a HUGE game. And to give an example of what I mean by huge…Elder Scrolls IV is around 4gb without addons, so think what 8 on a handheld could do.
I believe they’re limiting it to 2GB because the shelf price for games would be far bigger if they allowed 8GB. I don’t know about you, but most people wouldn’t want to spend more than $40 for handheld games.
Maybe in the future once developers have more experience with the 3DS, the limit will be increased. When they find ways to lessen development costs, you might see it hit 4GB for some games. Less development cost = cheaper shelf price. Iwata stated that he doesn’t want the games to be extremely expensive. He wants them to be in (or very close) to the current DS price range.
LOL “Twice as much as the SNES”?!?! The SNES as in Super Nintendo? Those cartriges could only hold 128 megabits dude. That’s not even comparable with Game Boy Advanced games.
@Awesome_Guy No, the Wii can hold 4GB single layer, and 8GB dual layer. It has the same limitations as a DVD.
@Jared What? I hope you mean the Wii, because it’s millions times bigger than the SNES. The SNES can hold 128KB. Now the 3DS can hold 8000000 KB. Literally millions more.
people having problems comparing the memory size to the ancient consoles, maybe you should do more research before leaving a utterly pointless comment.
8GB is really a big difference for hand held gaming, I know comparing to the psp the games will be a lot more better with a lot more details. Sony is really going to have a hard time taking over the 3DS but we can’t really talk the talk until we see what the future unfolds.
was about time nintendo step up their gaming though, I really look forward to buying one of these asap.
“It would be a nightmare to compile a 2 gig game. I don’t wanna know what it’d be like for an 8 gig one. However, that’s part of their job, so I hope Nintendo doesn’t cap it so low.”
With 8 gigs to play with, Nintendo should set the developers free to play with it. As callmeJackz mentioned, some of that 6 gigs is probably for security. Surely, they won’t need anywhere NEAR that much for security. I would have capped it at 6 or 7, and set the Devs free. It seems like a waste of a cartridge to me to put 2 or 3 gigs of data on it, and leave the rest empty.
Hm, it also occurs to me that they’re doing this in order to keep prices down for the customers.
I don’t think you realise what ‘capping’ is.
Like on the DS Nintendo had different size classes or cartridge e.g 128mb, 512mb.
With the 3DS the MAX POSSIBLE size is 8GB. They will start off with 2GB cartridges (not 8GB that have been limited to 2GB).
They will allow developers to use bigger sizes when necessary. Also speed isn’t an issue cartridges contain no moving parts (like SSD’s) so access speed will be high regardless of size (especially since 8GB is quite small.)
Wow, I sure hope the limit goes up. Imagine what they could do with pokemon if they did! They could probably combine all five regions into one game! With the upgraded graphics of gen 4 too. The 3D camera system of gen 5 might be hard to implement into the older completely 2D and semi-3D games though.
Of course this is all speculation based on something that hasn’t even been confirmed yet. Still, if they extended the limit they could port gamecube games to the thing. I’d love to have Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on that thing.
that means they better have some first person online shooter games. or web chat. they screwed up with the ds and the dsi. so i will not buy it unless it does everything they say it will and more. im talking watching youtube videos. web videochat. true online play. and awesome speakers.
amazing how nintendo is keeping cartridges alive i thought they would have went to mini cds with the 3ds but with 8gs who complaining! i wonder if their capping the wii back to
8gbs? That’s a lot! I guess capping it at 2gb might be useful for speed when compiling, depending on how the games will run.
It’s too bad they’ve decided to cap it, but it could be used in future games or for a high definition 3DS.
*facepalm*
Nintendo…..WHHYYYYY?!?!?!
Hopefully they are only limiting early games. And I seriously hope they aren’t using the extra space for tight security software like Microsoft does with xbox harddrives.
Just think with 8 gb, you could make a HUGE game. And to give an example of what I mean by huge…Elder Scrolls IV is around 4gb without addons, so think what 8 on a handheld could do.
I believe they’re limiting it to 2GB because the shelf price for games would be far bigger if they allowed 8GB. I don’t know about you, but most people wouldn’t want to spend more than $40 for handheld games.
Maybe in the future once developers have more experience with the 3DS, the limit will be increased. When they find ways to lessen development costs, you might see it hit 4GB for some games. Less development cost = cheaper shelf price. Iwata stated that he doesn’t want the games to be extremely expensive. He wants them to be in (or very close) to the current DS price range.
Still looks very promising, though.
Wow. That’s twice as much as the SNES, and the SNES can do some pretty cool stuff, even with its small amount of space.
LOL “Twice as much as the SNES”?!?! The SNES as in Super Nintendo? Those cartriges could only hold 128 megabits dude. That’s not even comparable with Game Boy Advanced games.
The snes? The biggest games on the snes was about 32 Mbit (thats 4 MB) So 2000 times smaller than 8 GB. and 500 times smaller than the capped 2GB.
The discs for Wii can hold only 5 GB of data.
This is incredible…
@Awesome_Guy No, the Wii can hold 4GB single layer, and 8GB dual layer. It has the same limitations as a DVD.
@Jared What? I hope you mean the Wii, because it’s millions times bigger than the SNES. The SNES can hold 128KB. Now the 3DS can hold 8000000 KB. Literally millions more.
people having problems comparing the memory size to the ancient consoles, maybe you should do more research before leaving a utterly pointless comment.
8GB is really a big difference for hand held gaming, I know comparing to the psp the games will be a lot more better with a lot more details. Sony is really going to have a hard time taking over the 3DS but we can’t really talk the talk until we see what the future unfolds.
was about time nintendo step up their gaming though, I really look forward to buying one of these asap.
Thanks for the information though :)
Totally i bet the games are gonna come out awsome i cant wait for the 3ds to come out
As I said on Facebook:
“It would be a nightmare to compile a 2 gig game. I don’t wanna know what it’d be like for an 8 gig one. However, that’s part of their job, so I hope Nintendo doesn’t cap it so low.”
With 8 gigs to play with, Nintendo should set the developers free to play with it. As callmeJackz mentioned, some of that 6 gigs is probably for security. Surely, they won’t need anywhere NEAR that much for security. I would have capped it at 6 or 7, and set the Devs free. It seems like a waste of a cartridge to me to put 2 or 3 gigs of data on it, and leave the rest empty.
Hm, it also occurs to me that they’re doing this in order to keep prices down for the customers.
I don’t think you realise what ‘capping’ is.
Like on the DS Nintendo had different size classes or cartridge e.g 128mb, 512mb.
With the 3DS the MAX POSSIBLE size is 8GB. They will start off with 2GB cartridges (not 8GB that have been limited to 2GB).
They will allow developers to use bigger sizes when necessary. Also speed isn’t an issue cartridges contain no moving parts (like SSD’s) so access speed will be high regardless of size (especially since 8GB is quite small.)
Wow, I sure hope the limit goes up. Imagine what they could do with pokemon if they did! They could probably combine all five regions into one game! With the upgraded graphics of gen 4 too. The 3D camera system of gen 5 might be hard to implement into the older completely 2D and semi-3D games though.
Of course this is all speculation based on something that hasn’t even been confirmed yet. Still, if they extended the limit they could port gamecube games to the thing. I’d love to have Wind Waker and Twilight Princess on that thing.
That’s amazing. When they revealed the 2GB thing they did say “for now”.
Now to question the dubious reliability of these solid state cards.
that means they better have some first person online shooter games. or web chat. they screwed up with the ds and the dsi. so i will not buy it unless it does everything they say it will and more. im talking watching youtube videos. web videochat. true online play. and awesome speakers.
amazing how nintendo is keeping cartridges alive i thought they would have went to mini cds with the 3ds but with 8gs who complaining! i wonder if their capping the wii back to