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Nintendo Switch won't see 64GB game cards till 2019, report says

Delivery of the larger-capacity cards gets pushed back as Nintendo sorts out technical issues, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
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Nintendo Switch

Nothing's broken here, folks. That's the way the Nintendo Switch is supposed to work.

 Sarah Tew/CNET

Don't go looking for 64-gigabyte game cards for your Nintendo Switch next year.

Nintendo is delaying delivery of the high-capacity cards until 2019 because of technical issues, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Previously, Nintendo had said it would make the cards available in the second half of 2018, according to the WSJ.

At the moment, game cards for the Switch, which features a break-apart modular design, top out at 32GB. An eventual move to 64GB would allow for more data-intensive games. Switch users also have the alternative of downloading games over the internet.

The Switch seems be doing all right with the games already available for it, like Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo has sold 10 million Switch consoles since the device hit the market in March.

My colleague Scott Stein says the Switch was the best gadget of  2017, a "weird, wild idea" that points to where tablets, phones and PCs could go next. He predicts that in 2018, we'll see lots of companies taking the same sort of plunge.

Nintendo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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