The SSD Mini card is not and may never be a formally ratified standard, but it aims to solve a real problem for portable game systems – the need for rapid storage that can load games at speeds approaching those of an internal SSD, without obliging users to separate their own systems to perform upgrades.
Why are the games so large, anyway?
Large storage, small size.
Credit: Biwin
An analysis of 2023 from TechSPOT suggested that the size of the game had increased at an average rate of around 6.3 GB per year between 2012 and 2023 – The games that come in more than 100 GB are not the standard, but they are not difficult to find. Part of this increase comes from the improvement of high resolution graphics and textures necessary to make games beautiful on 4K monitors and televisions. But TechSpot also noted that storage requirements for narrative and timed games like The last of us part 1 were just as much motivated by the audio files and the management of several languages.
“In total, nearly 17 GB of storage are necessary for (The last of us) Data unrelated to the graphics, “wrote the author Nick Evanson.” It’s bigger than any whole game of our 2010 sample! This model was consistent in almost all the “size of Godzilla” games that we have examined – those that showcase many kinematics, in -depth speech and considerable location were generally much more important than the rest of the sample during a given year. “”
For another recent primary example, consider the installation sizes for the Mac version of Cyberpunk 2077. The version of the game on Steam, The Epic Games Store and Gog works at around 92 GB. However, the version available for download on the Apple App Store is a huge 159 GB, only because it understands all the voices of the game in all the languages it supports. (This is due to the rules of the App Store which require that the applications have all the possible files included when submitted for examination.)
It is clear that there is a need for rapid storage levels which do not force you to completely dismantle your console or your PC. Whether it is this new “mini SSD”, faster iteration of microSD express, or another storage format still unknown.
