When Nintendo unveiled the Switch 2, a wave of anticipation swept through the gaming world, promising exciting new horizons and some hefty price tags. The most surprising reveal? A fresh MicroSD standard, dubbed MicroSD Express, which could be a bit of a budget-buster. Looking at the latest pricing information, these new cards could significantly outprice many contemporary SSDs. While SSDs go for 5 to 6 cents per GB, MicroSD Express cards hover around 20 to 25 cents per GB. This steep cost is owed to their integration of NVMe and PCIe 3.0 technologies, found in the M.2 SSDs.
For example, Sandisk’s MicroSD Express cards kick off at $49.99 for 128GB, jumping to $64.99 for 256GB. These cards promise read speeds of up to 880 MB/s and write speeds of 480 MB/s, featuring a consistent write speed of 100 MB/s.
Lexar, not wanting to miss out, has introduced their own line-up with storage options that go up to 1TB. Yet, prepare for some sticker shock — these larger capacities come at a premium for this emerging standard.
Take Lexar’s Play Pro for instance: the 1TB model commands $199.99, while the 512GB and 256GB models cost $99.99 and $49.99, respectively. Lexar touts impressive speeds of 900 MB/s for reading and 600 MB/s for writing.
While Sandisk’s cards sit as high as $0.39 per GB for their 128GB version, and $0.25 for the 256GB, Lexar seems to present a somewhat better value. They standardize at around $0.20 per gigabyte across their range, paired with top-tier specifications.
## The Importance of Storage in the Switch 2 Era
Though the Switch 2 arrives with a standard 256GB of built-in storage, there’s a catch. Even physical games might require substantial digital downloads to play, transforming cartridges into little more than fancy access keys, or as Nintendo has coined them, “Game-Key Cards.” This shift might be driven by companies eager to dodge rising NAND storage costs.
Take Street Fighter 6 — while you might purchase it on a cartridge, a 50GB download could still be necessary. The system’s 256GB storage can quickly be consumed this way, nudging users toward buying costly MicroSD expansions — unless you’re keen on the tedious cycle of downloading and deleting.
## A Closer Look at MicroSD Express
The leap from standard MicroSD to MicroSD Express isn’t immediately obvious to the untrained eye, but the specifications reveal a dramatic improvement over the older UHS-I standard used in the original Switch.
Classified by the SD Association, MicroSD Express spans four speed classes: Class 150, Class 300, Class 450, and Class 600, each indicating minimum performance levels in MB/s. These new cards also boast a greater number of pins — up to 17 compared to the 8 in their predecessors.
Built on NVMe and PCIe 3.0 infrastructures, they support speeds reaching 2GB/s, harnessed via PCIe 4.0 to maximize potential. While comprehensive details are still trickling in, these rip-roaring speeds remain mostly theoretical for now, with actual console performance yet to be confirmed.
Joey Lopez, Lexar’s Director of Brand Marketing, dubbed the standard game-changing, promising unparalleled performance for gamers eager to transition to the next generation of portable gaming.
With this new MicroSD Express improving upon the older UHS-I cards, the fastest announced speed currently comes from Lexar’s Play Pro MicroSDXC Express cards. However, their true capability will only be revealed once we have both the Switch 2 and these cards in our hands. Keep an eye out for our detailed review on the Nintendo Switch 2.
