Nintendo Switch owners who’ve purchased Team Sonic Racing may have noticed that it lacks an opening cutscene. Other versions of the game have it, so finding out that the Team Sonic Racing Switch version does not have it can be quite jarring. Sega has explained the cutscene is not found in the Switch version of the game due to the limited space found in a Switch cartridge.
Talking to US Gamer, a Sega representative stated that “The intro cutscene was removed from Switch build of Team Sonic Racing due to the cartridge size restrictions.” Specifically, Team Sonic Racing on Switch takes up about 7 gigabytes of its 8 gigabyte cartridge. Adding in the cutscene would have likely pushed the game’s size beyond what would fit in the cartridge.
Now, Nintendo does offer multiple sizes of cartridges for publishers to use. However, publishers have to pay more for larger sized cartridges. While Sega could have spent for a cartridge with more storage, it seems the extra cost wouldn’t have made up for the extra need—or maybe the game software would have only filled a small amount of the additional space.
That said, with today’s online-enabled consoles, some may be wondering if Sega can’t just patch the cutscene in. Other games, such as Mario Tennis Aces, have done the same to get around the cartridge size restrictions. Sadly, it seems that Sega has no plans to do so. Their representative told US Gamer that “At this time, there are no plans to add the cutscene back in via patch.”
While the lack of the opening cutscene is unfortunate, its exclusion doesn’t really take away from the gameplay of the Switch version. As such, Sega probably doesn’t think that developing a cutscene patch and then putting it through certification would be worth the effort. With this in mind, Team Sonic Racing players on Nintendo Switch will probably have to content themselves by watching the opening cutscene online on sites like YouTube.
