LA Noire Download Too Large for The Switch

A common concern when downloading digitally purchased games is the limited storage space. Consoles help alleviate this by selling larger hard drive variations or by letting you upgrade your hard drive yourself. The Nintendo Switch has taken the same approach as mobile phones and allows you to extend the total storage size via an insertable micro SD card.

I hope you've already invested in an SD card yourself, because the download size for the LA Noire Switch port is so large that it doesn't fit on the Switch's internal hard drive. Good thing there are physical copies, right? While normally that would be a great way to preserve spare storage space, to play LA Noire with a physical copy, you need to download a 14GB digital patch. That is nearly half of the Switch's 32GB internal storage.

The entire game, when digitally downloaded comes to about 29GB. Even though the Switch has a 32GB storage, 6.2GB are reserved for system use. That 29GB won't fit on the remaining 25.4GB.

Rockstar's explanation of the matters provided no reassurance:
 

"If using the physical cartridge version of LA Noire, the game will require a 14GB digital download containing required gameplay data as well as general bug fixes and improvements. This file can be downloaded to either the Nintendo Switch console's internal storage or a microSD card."

"The Nintendo eShop digital version of LA Noire, including all bug fixes and improvements, requires 29GB of available storage. Because this exceeds the available internal storage on the console, the eShop version of the game must be installed to a microSD card (sold separately) that is inserted prior beginning the download."

I was excited about LA Noire coming to Switch, but this is more of a hassle than one should have to expect from a Nintendo game.