NAND flash density in game hardware will grow by more than 40% in 2011

According to IHS iSuppli's NAND flash memory research report, although the higher cost of NAND flash has hindered its entry into gaming hardware, the NAND density in home consoles and handheld game consoles will increase by more than 40% in 2011.

The average NAND flash density for home consoles in 2011 is expected to reach 923MB, an increase of 42.2% from 629MB last year. The average NAND flash density growth of handheld game consoles this year will be slightly lower, but it will also exceed 40% and is expected to increase by 41.4%, from 87MB last year to 123MB. In these two types of products, the NAND density will continue to increase in the next few years. By 2015, home consoles will reach 3.5GB, and handheld game consoles will reach 428MB. The five-year compound annual growth rate starting from 2010 is about 40%, as shown in the figure.

The ever-increasing NAND density of home game consoles is particularly exciting for the industry. The price of this kind of game console is higher than handheld devices, and it has a long life and will not be replaced soon. In the past, competition among manufacturers was fierce, making game consoles very cost-sensitive, causing manufacturers to be less willing to use expensive flash memory to improve processing and graphics capabilities.

For example, the Sony PlayStation 3 doesn't even use NAND at all; it just uses a hard drive, and Nintendo's Wii uses only 512MB of embedded NAND flash. However, Nintendo's upcoming Wii U will use more NAND flash memory, which is expected to exceed the 2GB of its latest handheld 3DS. Microsoft's entry-level Xbox 360 was only 256 MB flash when it was introduced in late 2008. It was then added to 512 MB, which has now reached 4 GB.

Another way for home gaming machines to increase NAND density is to enhance mobile storage, such as allowing game installers to be stored on high-performance U-disks. To date, Xbox 360 allows some downloadable games to be stored on USB drives. In addition, companies such as Kingston and Super Talent have introduced USB 3.0 drives with higher read/write speeds, but due to the need for higher-quality controllers and NAND, the cost is almost as high as that of SSDs.

In handheld game machines, NAND flash memory is also increasingly popular. Nintendo DSi offers 256MB of internal flash memory, and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play gaming smartphone contains 400MB of flash memory.

However, handheld games are facing the challenge of free or cheap mini-games. Products such as mobile phones, portable media players, and tablets are already being used for digital downloads using flash memory - an embedded flash mode that has entered handheld game consoles via Nintendo eShop and the Sony PlayStation Store and has been adopted by Sony PSP Go. Full adoption.

However, Sony’s upcoming PSP Vita handheld gaming console decided to rely entirely on mobile storage, suggesting that traditional gamers may prefer hard copies of their storage media, which may undermine the reasons for supporting NAND flash memory in handheld game consoles.

But the most likely scenario is that the gaming industry will not completely ignore the benefits of using NAND in gaming hardware, such as reducing cooling requirements and shrinking product size. Nintendo has now identified a definite trend to add flash memory to its products, and Sony and Microsoft may adopt the same approach when it comes to launching next-generation game consoles.