More info validating that Nintendo NX will be cartridge based

That's also true. You would've hope Nintendo have backbones these days now, now that they need to get more aggressive with NX.

@jcrame10: never said it was going to max out to 32 gb.

Back in the days cartridge games didnt need patches, wonder how that will work now...

@aroxx_ab: We use to call them revisions back in the days.

Same way it does on the Ps4, patches would go on the hdd.

Actually no. Even a relatively recent 5,400 RPM drive will have a read speed of ~85MBps. Flash drives generally don't exceed 40MBps, they are usually in the 20-30MBps range. That speed makes a flash drive approximately equivalent to the PS4's Blu-ray drive (27MBps).

Would be awesome if they made the cartridges rewrite-able too, that way once you updated, youd be done. Disc suck cause of the awful loading times. Its time for gaming to advance. So much fun stuff can be done with faster speeds. It would improve immersion a bunch too.

@iandizion713: shareplay. communities. Streaming and recording, uploading, editing in real time. More apps and features. Bigger games. How are these consoles a complete rehash of last gen?

@jcrame10: Cause i did all those things last gen.

@Sphensen: if they did that they would loose in terms of power, online service, and 3rd party

as I said, they're fucked

i dont care for nintendo's gimmicks anymore jeez just make gamers that are not just for 8 year olds

If they are reverting to cartridges it would be Read Only which is typically faster. Flash drives are not read only but are writable storage but the read speeds are typically faster than a hard-drive. Link The link you provided is ancient.

You are looking at sequential read speeds. Game data isn't going to be sequential (at least most of it won't be). Drill down and look at the Random 4K and DQ read speeds; they are factors slower. We are also dealing with high performance (read expensive) controllers. Gamers don't want to pay more for games (we already bitch about $60) and smaller margins aren't going to attract third party publishers (which Nintendo desperately needs).

ROM would be stupid expensive and I don't know if there is a manufacturer on Earth that is making 16/32/64GB ROM chips. To stay economical Nintendo is going to have to use vanilla NAND technology.

if they can keep the cost down then its certainly better from a performance point of view. they would have to ensure the the speed is still top notch though (the vita can still have lengthy load times despite using carts for example). so keeping that cost low would be hard.

but the cost would have to be very low.

agreed guys

Firstly, the link you posted showed sequential reads and write. I gave you link showing that the read speeds are faster than what you are claiming and they are. Random 4K and DQ read speeds will be slower on a hard-drive and on Blu-ray, so I don't see how mentioning this strengthens your point. Secondly, where did you get this notion that game data isn't going to be sequential? How do you think they manage loading times on Disc based games in the past? Sequential data and repeated data.

There is significantly more evidence in support of a cartridge type system being faster than a hard-drive and blu-ray. I don't know what Nintendo's strategy is going to be with regards to cost. That is something they will need to disclose.

You underestimate the read speed of a SD card. Also, storage maximums are greater than Blu-ray.

You do know that the new XBOX will come with a BetaMax player?

@rekonmeister: Wasn't Beta Max a failed Sony product?

So you get the joke :P

Original Playstation was originally Nintendo.

@flyincloud1116 said:

I can't wait!

That's what I remember..lol

@Heil68 said:

@flyincloud1116 said:

I can't wait!

That's what I remember..lol

Yeah, LOL! My body is ready?

I don't think you understand what sequencial means. If you want to move a lot of data really fast it has to be in a single file; i.e. an archive (zip, tarball, iso, etc). Those fantastic speeds you are citing are recorded from single file moves. Game data isn't a single file, it going to be comprised of many many smaller files (textures, models, audio, video, etc).

Try it yourself. Find a directory with thousands of individual files and archive it into one file (e.g. 7-zip without compression). Time the difference between copying the single zip vs moving the entire directory.

Faster than an optical drive? Sure at a significantly higher price, but I don't know of many games (aside from Nintendo's antiquated titles) that read exclusively from the disc. Hard drives are still going to be much faster.

ever heard of flash drives?

I cannot believe you even asked that question, we have SD cards that can hold 512 GB of Data.

I'm a huge fan of cartridges.

I actually loved my NES/SNES/n64

I hated CD's because they could scratch, ive had several that wouldn't play I Never had any issues with my cartridges. They still work to this day, they look lovely on a shelf.

The CD's / DVD's and bluray's I own scratch and skip and they are garbage and digital is even worse I like having stuff on my shelf.

Cartridge IMO is the way to go it is future proof discs scratch, skip, break, if you go digital and the file or service you bought it from is gone your screwed.

Cartridge = with me for my entire life and can pass it on to my kids.

Disc = scratched and broken.

Digital = who the hell knows if this will stick with me forever I can't trade it I don't own it

Streaming = just kill me

You know we have SD cards that can hold 512 GB now right?

you need to step outside the box a cartridge can be any size and any shape, a USB flash drive could be called a cartridge

I understand what sequential read is but you are only accepting information and applying it on one application and not both. You link to a site with slow sequential reads and I linked to an updated site with sequential reads that were significantly higher. You were willing to use that site as proof of Flash drives poor performance. Now the same methodology used for proving its poor performance is showing the exact opposite and now its not valid because you decide to playing around with semantics.

The manner in which data is packaged varies from studio to studio and game engine. Some game engines package each level into one file, others would have thousands of files that each need to be loaded accordingly. Games with great loading times typically would have their data contiguous for obvious reasons. So, there is not set standard on how the data is package for games.

Independent of all of this, the same performance problem that you are so generous to point out for Flash would still apply to a hard-drive. All of these storage mediums benefit from sequential reads. Pretending that its exclusive to one medium over the other is nonsensical. Trying to underplay the performance advantage is a rather silly game, especially when its used to improve the performance of modern day hard-drives. The only real valid argument against Flash is cost not performance.

Excuses? Do you even know the meaning of the word excuses?

Hurr durr some people here hating on anything. Better then a scratched cd/dvd/blu-ray after years...

@iandizion713: on what console?

@jcrame10: PC! The greatest console of all time. I also use to stream my PS3 using my PC, like a boss.

Carts can work these days. Newer carts can hold a lot of space and are cheaper than they used to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb61kJpB2k0

@iandizion713: talkin about features between ps3 and ps4 or 360 and one. PC doesn't count. Plus PC can't run all of the exclusives on those platforms

@jcrame10: Yeah, nothing special, the games are still played the same mechanically. Its pretty sad really.

I was watching a GT Sport trailer, and dude spent whole video explaining the differences between the PS3 game and the PS4 game graphically.

I thought to myself, have we come to a time when the previous gens games are so similar that we have to explain the graphical differences because the mechanical ones are not noticeable?

@iandizion713: I don't see how that's any different from anything nintendo did this gen. How is super mario 3d world any different than 3d land. It's actually less ambitious than galaxy, a wii game.

Donkey kong country returns compared to tropical freeze? Just better graphics

Yoshis new island to yoshis woolly world? Same

Kirby rainbow curse? Same

Super smash bros, besides 8 player smash, the same thing but with better graphics

Mario kart wii to mario kart 8 = just better graphics.

They all do this. All games add minor new mechanics and up the graphics between sequels and consoles.

@jcrame10: Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World are both current gen and pretty different. 3D World is designed for 5 players.

Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze adds new features and more backdrops designs. And removes the motion controls mechanics.

Kirby Rainbow Curse is also very different then other ones. Same as Kirby Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot are way different.

Mario Kart 8 has new stuff also, it completely changes the way we race.

I'm all for it if Nintendo can keep costs down. A cart could eliminate mandatory installs, which means you could buy a game, pop it in, and get right to playing. Minus the probable day 1 patch, but I can hang with that.

Except, that's the maximum read speed of Bluray under the most ideal conditions, and is never actually achieved in the real world. In reality, the laser in a bluray or DVD drive must move around far too much, and can only read a single point at a time. Flash drives have the advantage of reading many bits of data at once, have no moving parts, and are much, much faster than harddrives and Bluray.

The public will eventually get an emulator, but PS4 and XBox One games can be played on PC right now using dev kit software. Good luck trying to find it, though...

@iandizion713: all games add new features. Uncharted 4, infamous second son, lbp3, halo 5, etc all added new features not found in the old games. I don't see how this is any different

@jcrame10: Thats true, those games do add some small stuff. All LBPs bout same, all Uncharted bout same, all Halo bout same, Forza bout all the same, etc.

Unlike Nintendo, they dont switch up the formula of their milk much.

Nintendo should try this thing the cool kids call "VHS tape" for their new console.

@iandizion713: how is a cat suit or adding a 5th player any worse or better than uncharted adding markig, stealth mechanics or a grappling hook?

@jcrame10: Why your comparing the two, i have no clue. How bout comparing 3D World with Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros, Mario Sunshine, or Luigi Mansion.

Comparing Uncharted 1-4 is very boring.

@iandizion713: luigis mansion isn't even in the mario platformer franchise.

Sure there's a lot of differences between galaxy and 3d world, but the new super mario bros series are redundant and the same game every time. That is a series that hasn't changed since 1990s super mario world, really at all.

uncharted 1 and uncharted 4 aren't really alike at all either. Vastly different in gameplay mechanics and pacing. You can skip entire combat areas of uncharted 4. That was never possibly before

Yeah , and you want to say that a USB of flash is cheaper to manufacture than a Blu ray Disk ?

@AzatiS: Bro, stop being cheap, get with the times. We gonna play with power or not?