Managing Switch's Memory Without an SD Card Has Become Its Own Mini-Game

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I now engage in a regular dance with my Switch. When adding new game, it’s time for one to come off the board. There are games I refuse to delete, knowing I might come back at any time—used to be Breath of the Wild, now it’s Super Mario Odyssey—which means the vast majority of the Switch’s tiny internal storage (just 32GB) is largely accounted. That leaves room for one other big game, a few smaller ones?

This dance has become its own little game. Subsurface Circular, which I’ve been meaning to play but haven’t gotten around to, got the axe. That saved me 544MB. Thumper, which is probably neat on the Switch but a game I’ve experienced elsewhere, was also removed, freeing up 695MB. This wasn’t enough for what I ultimately needed: 6.6GB for Donkey kong Country: Tropical Freeze. It was time to start considering the big guns.

In this case, the “big guns” literally referred to the weapons attached to Bayonetta. Bayonetta 2 is one of my all-time favorites, and I’ve meant to play the original. Hence, picking up Bayonetta on the Switch! But I haven’t found the time for it, and when I haven’t found the time for something after a few months, there’s probably a reason.

See ya, Bayonetta. Hello, 8.5GB! And thus, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, a game I definitely will be playing over the next few weeks, found its way onto my Switch.

I could remedy these inventory management issues by buying an SD card. Because there were so few games I wanted to play on my Switch the first year, I was able to keep juggling pretty well. It’s only now I’m been forced to reckon with Nintendo’s cost cutting, which means I should just go to Amazon and move on.

…or I could axe Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, free up 2.6GB, and roll the dice…

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