Physical Nintendo Switch carts don’t require a mandatory install

This was expected

As most of us expected, you won’t need to install data in a mandatory fashion when using a cart, like you would if you’re using physical media on the Xbox One and PS4.

After booting up Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Switch this week, I noticed that after popping the cart in, the game just loaded instantly and didn’t require anything else. Although day one patches and possible “booster packs” (like faster load times and the like) are a possibility, you won’t have any space issues if you’re going solely physical. It’s not like we expected there to be mandatory installs with a cartridge, but confirmation is always nice.

Going physical is particularly easy to do on the Switch at launch, as a ton of developers are releasing physical editions, even for ports.