Will we ever see the return of catridges?

Cartidges where the iconic medium for games back in the day. The N64 was the last system to hold on to the classic form of game medium. Now everything uses discs.

But as discs progress with technology, so do things like flash memory. Now days you can buy a 1gig usb flash drive for around 20-30 bucks. SD cards are getting better and cheaper as time goes on, too.

Perhaps in time, say another ten years or so, we'll be slamming catridges into our consoles, just like the old days. Flash memory seems superior to discs any way. Discs can get scratched and disc drives can easily be busted. With a flashdrive system there would be no delicate moving parts that could get missaligned or broken and cartridgesare much more durable than a disc.

I personally think it's only a matter of time before consoles go back to using a cartridge type medium. Heck, I think it's only a matter of time before all storage medium becomes more like flash memory.

Nope

Disks will always be a cheaper way to get read only data out to the masses.

Sadly, it's a lot cheaper to produce discs rather than cartridges.

Why do I say sadly? Because recent studies have found that after 15 or 20 years, discs start to lose data and become worthless (Don't ask me for a Link because my film teacher taught me it, and I don't know where she got it from). That means that in maybe 15 years I won't be able to play any of my Gamecube games:cry:.

Sadly, it's a lot cheaper to produce discs rather than cartridges.

Why do I say sadly? Because recent studies have found that after 15 or 20 years, discs start to lose data and become worthless (Don't ask me for a Link because my film teacher taught me it, and I don't know where she got it from). That means that in maybe 15 years I won't be able to play any of my Gamecube games:cry:.

bob_newman

Huh? I still have 'The Dig' disc and it was launched like 15 years ago :? (and works)

Sadly, it's a lot cheaper to produce discs rather than cartridges.

Why do I say sadly? Because recent studies have found that after 15 or 20 years, discs start to lose data and become worthless (Don't ask me for a Link because my film teacher taught me it, and I don't know where she got it from). That means that in maybe 15 years I won't be able to play any of my Gamecube games:cry:.

bob_newman

cry not as within that time we can play gc games on the whatevers VC (and wii games probably too)

but still looking at how much memory can be fit into and sd card its like 4 gigs on a thing smaller then my big toe lol

so who know we may see the return of cartrigde games eventually but on sd cards

and the ds games seem to work pretty well so..... who knows

Sadly, it's a lot cheaper to produce discs rather than cartridges.

Why do I say sadly? Because recent studies have found that after 15 or 20 years, discs start to lose data and become worthless (Don't ask me for a Link because my film teacher taught me it, and I don't know where she got it from). That means that in maybe 15 years I won't be able to play any of my Gamecube games:cry:.

bob_newman

Yea, maybe if you bury it in your backyard. I'd like to have somebody explain to me how it loses data.

[QUOTE="bob_newman"]

Sadly, it's a lot cheaper to produce discs rather than cartridges.

Why do I say sadly? Because recent studies have found that after 15 or 20 years, discs start to lose data and become worthless (Don't ask me for a Link because my film teacher taught me it, and I don't know where she got it from). That means that in maybe 15 years I won't be able to play any of my Gamecube games:cry:.

boostud

Yea, maybe if you bury it in your backyard. I'd like to have somebody explain to me how it loses data.

The information on disks degrade over time.

Especially disks you burn yourself.

The real question is how long do they last. The main opinion is "long enough" though no one can really predeict when disks of any kind start to fail. Some do in the first 20 years and others keep on spinning.

People forget that cartridges have gotten smaller, cheaper and more useful in recent years. If a cartridge that size can hold that much information for a DS game, im sure cartridges could still be used at some time or another. Its just that CD's have recieved more attention due to theirconvenience during the 32-64 bit era.

I certainly see handhelds continuing to use cartridge based media - and lets not forget that information on a cartridge is accessed immediately, reducing or eliminating loading times, and are far more durable than discs.

They say history has a way of repeating it self .... before u kno it we might go back to cartridges .... is it a good idea, probably not lol. Will the head honchoes at M$ ,Sony or Nintendo think of it highly doubtful. Its a neat idea though.

[QUOTE="boostud"][QUOTE="bob_newman"]

Sadly, it's a lot cheaper to produce discs rather than cartridges.

Why do I say sadly? Because recent studies have found that after 15 or 20 years, discs start to lose data and become worthless (Don't ask me for a Link because my film teacher taught me it, and I don't know where she got it from). That means that in maybe 15 years I won't be able to play any of my Gamecube games:cry:.

Jaysonguy

Yea, maybe if you bury it in your backyard. I'd like to have somebody explain to me how it loses data.

The information on disks degrade over time.

Especially disks you burn yourself.

The real question is how long do they last. The main opinion is "long enough" though no one can really predeict when disks of any kind start to fail. Some do in the first 20 years and others keep on spinning.

Yeah, exactly. Now, I know the majority of gamers wouldn't care if their discs stopped working in a couple decades, but I consider myself a bit of a collector and something like this is devastating to a game library. Sure, you will probably be able to download them onto whatever future VC is available, but, being a perfectionist as I am, I have to have the original disc, manual and case...otherwise I'm not a happy camper.

We might do one day, as soon as SSD becomes extremely cheap, in other words not for another 5-10 years.reyad-u

I think cartridges will come back eventually. Flash memory is growing in capacity at a faster and faster pace and will eventually take over hard drives in the laptop market. It might take a while but there is too many reasons for it to happen (way faster load times, smaller footprint, lower power consumption, caters to the enthusiats market etc). If you keep up with what Apple is doing it seems very likely a new ultra portable laptop is going to to be revealed on the 15th of this month which will use this technology as a replacement to a traditional laptops hard drive.

At the same time I think downloaded media will be a huge success as well. Either way laser technology is going to reach a limit as the precision of the lasers and the fineness of the media needed to hold the data reaches maximum. If you look at the size of a DVD or HD Disc and were allowed the same size for flash media down the road (which is a huge ammount of area considering the footprint most flash media takes up) you can see how this technology will outpace optical. It has had a long run but will likely go the way of magnetic tape which dominated from the 60's into the 90's in everything from computer floppy disks to VHS to ATRAC. Almost all technology finds a better alternative if given enough time.

I think CD's are eventually going to be replaced at one time or another. I only wiish it could happen in time to stop the stupid Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war.

You should post this topic in System Wars too if you havent already, it would be interesting to see the response it gets - most likely hostility from fanboys that are obsessed by disc based media, Cows especially.

Actually, I think they will. But only if downloading off of the internet doesn't take over first.

And to anyone that says carts take up too much space. Disks in their cases take up way more room. I personally hate how much space DVD cases take up.

No because cartridges can support the grphics we see todayjustinmolnar

Did you just make that up? Cuz everything on the disks loads onto cartridges inside the console.

[QUOTE="reyad-u"]We might do one day, as soon as SSD becomes extremely cheap, in other words not for another 5-10 years.ice_radon

graphics have nothing to do with discs, storage space have nothing to do with discs, data is data.

It all comes down to cost, discs are cheaper, if you had cartriges you'd never have loading and u can save direclty onto the cartridge cause its like inserting a hardware extension.

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

btw ds uses cratridges still, however hold way less info than a wii game still...

graphics have nothing to do with discs, storage space have nothing to do with discs, data is data.

It all comes down to cost, discs are cheaper, if you had cartriges you'd never have loading and u can save direclty onto the cartridge cause its like inserting a hardware extension.

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

btw ds uses cratridges still, however hold way less info than a wii game still...

iceswift

There exist SD-cards that can hold up to 16GB of data. However they aren't cheap (yet).
A cartridge is just a flash memory.

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

iceswift

How about storage space? Get back to me when there is a cartridge that can hold the 50 GB of data a Blu-Ray disc can hold.

awe i miss cartridges!

how they had the little picture on em and stuff. i gots alot of those for the nes and snes and n64. in my closet :P

[QUOTE="iceswift"]

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

Rocky32189

How about storage space? Get back to me when there is a cartridge that can hold the 50 GB of data a Blu-Ray disc can hold.

Read the topic? "Will we ever see the return of cartridges"
ATM is the disc format superior (space wise) but that may change in the future.

EDIT: Besides you can take several memory chips and connect them together to receive more space. However it would be expensive.

[QUOTE="iceswift"]

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

Rocky32189

How about storage space? Get back to me when there is a cartridge that can hold the 50 GB of data a Blu-Ray disc can hold.

There are cartridges that can hold way more the 50GB.

are you retarted? discs are way better and you dont have to blow in them or anything stupid like that...a55a551n5_cr33d

Do you blow at your SD-cards? The cartridges the NES, SNES and the N64 used were just flash memories in a plastic box. Exactly like todays SD-cards...

A x2 Blu-ray player (which atm is the highest speed) is really slow. It can only read a disc in 9 MB/s compared to a x16 DVD-Player which can read in 21,6 MB/s. A memory can be many times faster.
Why do you think the N64 barely had any load times at all compared to the PS1?

perhaps they will both become extinct, and something new will appear.Sykes

yeah! like some kind of sludge you put into the console and it eats it then lets you play the game.

[QUOTE="Sykes"]perhaps they will both become extinct, and something new will appear.PeterPerson

yeah! like some kind of sludge you put into the console and it eats it then lets you play the game.

Or maybe downloading them from the internet...

[QUOTE="Sykes"]perhaps they will both become extinct, and something new will appear.PeterPerson

yeah! like some kind of sludge you put into the console and it eats it then lets you play the game.

I think in the near future we will be downloading all our games.darkmark91

[QUOTE="Rocky32189"][QUOTE="iceswift"]

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

BubbyJello

How about storage space? Get back to me when there is a cartridge that can hold the 50 GB of data a Blu-Ray disc can hold.

There are cartridges that can hold way more the 50GB.

They're also the size of Neo Geo carts and are around 1000 dollars.

[QUOTE="BubbyJello"][QUOTE="Rocky32189"][QUOTE="iceswift"]

Basically cartriges pwn discs in every way except costs which is the only thing that matters to the game developers

Jaysonguy

How about storage space? Get back to me when there is a cartridge that can hold the 50 GB of data a Blu-Ray disc can hold.

There are cartridges that can hold way more the 50GB.

They're also the size of Neo Geo carts and are around 1000 dollars.

You can find 1.8" SSD's (64GB) but their just too expensive for games, like I said before it is possible for cartridges to come back but there is a long wait until that happens.