The Nintendo Switch branded SD card will cost about 3 times the cost of a normal Lexar or a Samsung type.
The listed price by Amazon.jp is different from the ones marked by third parties and is much more than the price intended by the manufacturer.
Nintendo has a partnership with HORI offering official SD cards that are Switch Branded, offered in variants of 16 GB and 32 GB.
Need for SD Cards
When comparing the hard drive of the Nintendo Switch to those of the Xbox One or the PS4, the former has a capacity of 32 GB, with the other two having 500 GB memory. Many users already consider that 500 GB is much too small. However, many players find the 32 GB hard drive of the Nintendo Switch sufficient. They make use of cartridges and not disks and these cartridges do not need loads of information noted on the HD, when compared to other games based on disks.
However, some players would like to download a game and are worried that 32 GB might not be enough. The Nintendo Switch SD card offers a solution for additional storage.
Also Read : Get Ready to Pay to Replace Your Nintendo Switch Battery When it Dies
The Issue of Pricing
The price of the 32 GB Nintendo Switch SD card is Y 7900, which is around US $70. However, a top end 32 GB SD card with the Sandisk brand is priced at Y 2690, which is around US $23. There are also other cheaper SD cards having the same storage of 32 GB, though they come with a slower read or write speed. These are available for as low a price as Y 1180, which is around US $10.
Latest Update on Price
However, the latest update on the price is that HORI website prices the 32 GB SD card at Y 3758, which is still more than the Sandisk one, though it is lower than the price listed earlier.
Official Brand
Considering the increased price listing, it does not seem wise to opt for the official branded Nintendo Switch SD card. It is really not necessary to pay around three times more than the regular price for standard microSD cards. The official seal of Nintendo is really not worth the tripled price and any SD card can be used in the Switch.
Smart Shopping
It is rather strange that Nintendo has released a console with only 32 GB, as it is difficult for users to rely on SD card storage. However, Nintendo has probably reduced the storage in a bid to keeping the price down at $300 during the time of the launch.
You can increase the storage of the Switch using an SD card available for around $10 to $70, but it is not easy to stretch the storage to 500 GB. It might not be a problem for players who don’t download too many games, typical console players make a lot of digital downloads, which fills up even the PS4 or the Xbox One’s hard drive. While shopping around for SD cards to expand the storage, the branded Nintendo ones are not the only option, so do your shopping wisely.