Storing Games
Using Xbox Live arcade, I realized that even smaller games still take up memory. With all the games on the Virtual Console, how could the Revolution store a lot of games, like 30 or 40?
Matt responds: Pretty easily, actually. Let me run through the numbers with you. Revolution features 512 megabytes (MBs) of internal flash memory, to which downloaded games can be stored. It doesn't seem like a lot compared to a 20 gigabyte hard drive, but it's more than enough to accommodate dozens upon dozens of NES and S-NES games. You probably don't realize just how tiny the games from Nintendo's systems truly were. Most NES games were less than 128k, or 1 megabit. There is a difference between a megabit and a megabyte. Approximately 8 megabits equal 1 megabyte. Now consider that games like Donkey Kong, Excitebike and Ice Climbers were as small as 32k, which means that four of these titles would equal 128k or 1 megabit, which is only one eight of 1 megabyte. You can download a 1 megabyte file on Xbox Live in about five seconds.
Of course, NES games were bigger. They tended to run upward of 1 megabyte, which is still a very manageable number. It's when you throw N64 games, which sometimes ran 64 megabytes, that the 512 megabytes of internal flash memory starts to slim down.
But worst case scenario, you can buy a cheap SD Card and expand you flash memory on Revolution by several gigabytes, if not more, which will solve most of your space problems.
Finally, much of this may be a moot point if Nintendo's download service enables you the option to download purchased titles whenever you want. If you were running out of space, you could simply delete a previously purchased game and then re-download it for free when you wanted to play again.