If you've ever wondered what was actually inside a Nintendo Switch cart, then wonder no more, dear reader. Over on YouTube, Tinker Man Mick has uploaded a Short (okay, it was uploaded in July 2023, so we're a bit late, but who cares) to demonstrate that some Switch carts actually have quite a bit of empty space.
Cracking open a copy of Let's Sing 2021, you can see that the board within does indeed fill the entire casing, while a copy of Super Mario Odyssey actually has quite a bit of unused space. Now, the video is titled 'Why Does Nintendo Do This?', but we think it's fairly obvious. Switch carts are pretty small to begin with, so making it even smaller would no doubt make it more difficult to handle while leaving much less space for publishers to attach their printed game labels.
In fact, the whole thing reminds us of NES carts, which in the West were a lot bigger than Famicom carts in Japan. Despite being bigger, however, the boards within were basically the same size. Of course, this was very much a design decision from Nintendo, with the carts themselves being front-loaded into the NES console.
Still, it's cool to see what's actually inside a Switch cart. We've admittedly not pulled any of ours apart; they're simply too precious to us!