Dev says Switch 2's physical Game Cards were too slow for Star Wars Outlaws port

"From the outside, it's a bit odd that Nintendo allowed this loading-speed dichotomy to exist on the Switch 2 in the first place. On the original Switch, read speeds for both SD cards and Game Cards reportedly maxed out around 90 MB/s. But when designing the new Switch 2 game cards, Nintendo settled on a format that would stream data much more slowly than for downloaded games on the same console."

"If so, though, it doesn't seem to have done much to reduce the costs of manufacturing Switch 2 game cards themselves. The cost of manufacturing those physical Game Cards has been frequently cited as a major reason many publishers are using cheaper Game Key Cards in the first place, though Bantin said that he "[didn't] recall the cost of the cards ever entering the discussion [for Star Wars: Outlaws]-probably because it was moot.""

MicroSD Express on the Switch 2 delivers substantially faster data transfer than streaming from Switch 2 Game Cards. The Game Card format streams more slowly than downloaded games on the same console, creating inconsistent loading times. The slower Game Card streaming may reflect an attempt to minimize Game Card interface hardware costs, yet manufacturing expenses for physical cards remain significant and influence publishers' decisions to use alternatives like Game Key Cards. Switch 2 I/O performance is strong compared with older physical hard drives. Allowing pre-installation from Game Cards could mitigate slow streaming but pressures limited internal storage and expansion costs for users.

Read at Ars Technica