It’s not long now until Mortal Kombat 11 is released. In fact, it’s less than two weeks away. And because of how close it is, Twitter user NWPlayer123 has discovered information and details about the Switch version’s eShop listing.
NWPlayer123 has a bot that notifies her of any changes to Nintendo’s CDN metadata. The total size of the Switch version of Mortal Kombat 11 22.5GB.
It seems that Mortal Kombat 11 will be a relatively small 6.5GB download, however, it will need a day-one update of 15GB before it becomes playable. This means that players will need to free up some space or make sure they have a spare microSD card around, should they want to download Mortal Kombat 11 on Switch.
Mortal Kombat 11 Switch
There are also theories being spun, that those who purchase the physical version of Mortal Kombat 11 on Switch will also need to download the 15GB day-one update. NWPlayer123 tweeted;
what’s the bet they skimped on cart size, 8GB, and then make you download a giant update patch to actually play the game
In addition, NWPlayer123 has discovered that there are 13 planned pieces of DLC for Mortal Kombat 11 on the eShop.
oh and there's already *13* DLC listings pic.twitter.com/eUBOoxlWwY
— Nikki™ (@NWPlayer123) April 9, 2019
Our understanding is that the available Switch game cart sizes are currently 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. While the actual cost of the varying game cards is not public knowledge, it is known in industry circles that the price of Nintendo providing an 8GB game card (with associated packaging costs on top) to a third-party publisher is roughly the same as the costs which Microsoft and Sony charge for a Xbox One and PS4 Blu-Ray discs (again, including platform fee and packaging costs).
8GB is therefore “the sweet spot” for third parties, as it means they can sell at a cost which matches the Sony and Microsoft versions, in the case of multi-format releases
This suggests that Warner Bros has opted for a cheaper, 8GB cart in this instance, in order to save on costs and force consumers to download the rest of the game digitally. When someone purchases a physical copy, they don’t expect to have to download a large portion of the game in order to play it. In fact, that flies in the face of a physical release.
It’s not just an issue of download space or time. Some users may not even have access to the internet, which is why they choose to purchase digitally in the first place.
The size of the game on the cart remains speculation for now, though it does seem as though players will be forced to download 15GB to play.
Mortal Kombat 11 will be available on April 23, 2019.
