Nintendo 3DS game cards can store up to 8GB worth of data (and that’s a lot)
36 CommentsThe entirety of Wind Waker took up about 1.3GB of space. Macronix, the company that are manufacturing the cartridges for the Nintendo 3DS have confirmed that they can store up to 8GB of data. Let that sink in. 8GB is enough for about six Wind Wakers. I don’t think developers are going to struggle too much with space.
**Update:** In the comments *abujaffer* makes a good point. Nintendo has previously confirmed cartridges will have up to 2GB of storage at launch, so it sounds like if Nintendo wants to they can allow cartridges up to 8GB, but they’re remaining conservative for now. Even so, there’s always that breathing room there, so while developers may not have access to all that space straight away, if they’re actually struggling with space (and not just being lazy with compression), then Nintendo should have it covered.
this is amazing! more than a wii game, more than a gamecube by far, we could see extensive games! maybe the cost will go up, but they will be long and awesome, no more 10 hr games on ds!
I’m not too sure that that’s a good thing.
I can remember, and still vastly prefer, when we would talk about how we’d surpassed the challenges we faced. In my view, it all got very boring once it became “I’m five hours in.”, instead of “I finally got to level five!”…
HOLY FREAKING CRAP!!!
awesome news this, super!!!
HOLY CRAP!!! That’s far more than the average Wii disc size and nearly equal to a dual-layered DVD. Why if Capcom wanted to, they could fit any of their Xbox 360 games and modify it to 3DS qualifications. Which would explain how Super Street Fighter 4 3DS is possible.
This is the size of a Wii game. (Dual layer). That’s the size of SSBB. That is why so many PS2 games are being ported…. the 3DS has more than enough space for any PS2 game. (Except dual layer games, but those are mostly first party. Unless Sony feels like giving Nintendo its God of War license. Which is a pretty good strategy, now that I think of it….) Nintendo said they will be able to hold 2GB at launch, so I think the 8GB is sort of extra cost, sort of like how it’s harder to dual layer DVD’s than single layer.
I fully expect that as time goes on we will see a trend, one that the “hackers” will confirm for us all with their tinkering and dumping of gamecart info.
The trend I’m speaking of is that the 3DS games will have “expansions” just like many console and PC games have, only developers will be able to include a expansion or two on the cart.
Which would be unlocked via purchasing a “unlock” of sorts from the 3DS store online.
3ds game cart can hold six freaking wind walkers?!!!! faints
Just because it CAN be that much, doesn’t mean it will. Most of the time when a game takes up that much space, it’s usually do to having so many CGI videos.
Of course unless it means multiple game collections on one cartridge. Dreamcast greatest hits on one cartridge anyone?
This man speaks the truth.
Cutscenes and audio are what take up all the space.
I remember a guy telling me he got a 100mb pirated rip of God of War: Chains of Olympus, whereas the clean rip I made from my UMD is 1.6gb. The only difference between our two versions was that his had all the cutscenes removed.
And a 3DS cutscene should theoretically take up half the space of a Wii cutscene. 8GB is plenty.
Although, what’s great is that there should be nothing stopping the 3DS from reading 16, 32 or 64GB cartridges, assuming that they did a decent job software-side (which, based on the videos so far, seems true) and the port isn’t crap.
The price of the carts will make a difference though, on the ds the smaller the cart size the the cheaper they are. So i think that 8GB will be so expensive it wont be used often if ever
What handheld game could need more than 4gb….oh yeah Final Fantasy
Wrong, Retro.
A rewritable flash chip that holds 16gb costs $20 at retail, which would suggest that an 8gb write-once one would be bugger all – maybe $5 to produce, if that.
And flash memory roughly halves in cost each year, which if what I said was correct, by the end of 2011 they could produce a 16gb one for under $5.
That is, of course, unless we’re talking about REALLY high-grade flash here. It would definitely cost more than $5 then.
I think i understand the special priveliges given to the pokemon company for the 3ds now. 3d pokemon game? doent make much sense. a pokemon game using 8 gig? OH. I SEE NOW.
wow thats amazing…. such a small cartridge. Theres absolutely nothing bad about that news!
Sorry to be a negative Nancy, but it’s nothing new.
I’ve had a memory card 1/10th the size that can hold 16gb for years.
Woah, woah, woah, woah…WOAH back up. EIGHT GB?!?!
How much was twilight princess? Ssbb?
By the way, gta 4 is 8 gigs o.O
Well Twilight Princess fit on a Gamecube disc, so 1.3gb.
SSBB was Dual Layer, so it’s 8gb.
That is of course because SSBB had so much cutscenes and audio.
Holy crap! whenever I make a game they are only around 6 mb!!
Good lord, think of the huge textures they could fit on that! Now for nintendo to make a super realistic looking Animal Crossing…
could we all have a reality check please ALL wii discs are dual-layered dvd there for there all approaching 9GB of storage so its not more than ANY wii disc in existence.. games using single layered data still ship on dual layered discs AH-HMM!!!!!!.
secondly this is indeed huge 8GB for a portable games device and NO HD level to support ADD loads of compression is a insane amount of space,its like bluray to a ps3 in relative terms…
last point with this news, a return to cart for wii 2 looks more likely if there going max 8GB maybe more in the future for 3DS
then whats stopping them from going 8GB min to say 32GB max for a wii successor this is fantastic news and it will rape a ps3 and x360 and wii at loading speeds, carts destroy disc at load stream speed and add a read write ability not just read this is HUGE news…
“return to cart for wii 2 looks more likely if there going max 8GB maybe more in the future for 3DS” where did you hear this!?!
Specualtion.
It’s fact that the 3DS should theoretically be able to get bigger carts in the future.
well now im glad no great games are coming out at launch, they would be too small in comparison to what they can be later.
What?? No good games are coming at launch? Do you follow this blog? What about kid icarus, ocarina of time mario kart?
[...] 1 | 2 Categorias: Nintendo 3DS Nintendo presentará 3DS en Europa el próximo mes, [...]
It would be pretty sweet if Capcom ported Marvel vs Capcom 3 because of this. Because 8GB sounds like a lot of memory to me.
there porting the 2 wii one piece games into one cartridge. That’s impressive for a handheld system
This is good. With physical based media like this the loading times will be very short.
Hmm , thats no suprise :)
Wario Land: The Third Dimension is gonna be 20+ hours long.
Amazing, that´s almost the same size an xbox 360 game can have, I mean we can get the best graphics the 3ds ccan offer while having a game with a decent playthrough time :)
With all that memory, multi-player games will SURROUND the 3DS. I mean, you could probably make a game with 15 other people able to join the fray with you online. This is good news for me, especially because I love online multi-player games, and I’m sure thousands of people agree with me. Let’s just hope that Nintendo at least puts 4 GB on the cartridges. That would still be good, right?
hold ya horses 8Gbit= 2GB i want confirmation from nintendo it maybe 2GB as its a jap site people are getting this from… if really 8GB then maybe a cart for wii successor id love that..
No 8Gbit is 1GB. If I’m not mistaken, a byte is 8 bits, so a Gegabyte=8192 while a Gegabit=1024 bits. Plus it’s a Chinese site not a Japanese one. And yes, I’ve been expecting the next console to have carts for almost 2 years, ever since Sony announced a 64GB SD (it came with one of their cameras) card at the end of the summer 2008. That’s when I realized, in a couple years this will be cheaper than Blue-Ray, faster, and way easier to manufacture. Plus unless you dip it in water (and even then it might still work) it will work forever, unlike DVD’s which only last for 6 years max, even without using it or scratching. My copy of SSBB is starting to cause disc errors…. sniff
keep in mind most games will be about 1 or 2 gB this is true for about every console for example call of duty black ops 25 gB disc 8.51 gB in content I’m sure they do this because they don’t want to limit developers with the content they put into game but space doesn’t really matter the graphic designer, triangles, shaders, and VRAM matter the most