[musicale]

> 15 to 20 seconds to actually load the game

Hmm, this is disappointing and something that they should really fix.

As I understand it, the whole advantage of ROM cartridges on Atari-like systems is that no loading is required - the games run directly off the cartridge ROM. Enthusiast emulation systems can boot in a couple of seconds.

The Nintendo Switch cartridges are more like a read-only file system, but games still load quickly without a lengthy installation process and can usually run without an internet connection.

[khedoros1]

In the classic cartridge systems, you plug in the cartridge, and the data is directly accessible on the bus of the system. Some milliseconds to initialize hardware, and the game can start.

What they're doing here is dumping the cartridge, and loading it into an emulator. That, and probably the boot of whatever OS the device is running, is the "load time" for the game.