So I jokeingly made a comment in the next wii thread about it bringing back cartridges and now i think that wouldnt be a bad thing.

a new cartridge with todays tech could have:

1. TONS of SPACE as a cartidge games little more than a hardrive with 1 program on it. you could easily have a cartridge with 500 gb of data maybe even 1tb and cost what people pay for games. with that much space game programers can have all the room the need for what ever.

2. no need for having a lot of onboard storage. the storage need for a game chages back to the game the console wouldnt need lots of storage just room for updates and web brosing ect.

3. be able to once again throw a game across a room or in the toilet and still play it after calming down

4. with curtailable storgae space on a disc games can be more individualy priced. a simple game that dosent need a lot of space can have a smaller version of the cartridge and be priced less.

5. no more load times games and faster gameplay as its all hardware.

6. piracy protection for game makers. more money in there pocket for a time...

The down side is storage space for them

 

shit the games now usually less than 10-15GB...

im all about cartridges...

they could do this easily... but with consoles being such a big home entertainment hit.. they would need to have both, cartridge slots and disc trays...

it would be hard for them to justify putting both...

 

 

I'm still waiting from them to bring back the 8-track player

 

a cartridge executed in a flash memory style would be awesome! No more spinning hard drives or disk drives or worrying about scratching disks! Plus with transfer rates of nearly 6 GBPS they would be able to handle quite a bit more intricate data and processing!

 

yeah i see your point while i haveing movie capabilities are a plus but when you get netflix on your console who needs a disc anyway. not to mention bluray players are priced low enough that it dosent matter if your console can play them (to me anyway)

 

this would also cut down on consoles power consumption.

 

comared to optical media silicon based storage is extremely expensive........

hard drives are extremely cheaper overall compared to carts as 500GB hdd retail for $50 now and that is why you see the combo of optical and mechanical storage

btw a 250GB 2.5" drive is is under $10 to make now....and they retail for under $40

 

show me a SSD or any flash ram that can transfer at 6GBps I am sure you mean 6Gbps (bits, not Bytes)

the fastest SSD barely makes 300MB/sec

a class 10 SDHC card can only read/write at 6Mb/sec

 

oh yeah didnt think about production costs i remember reading how when it was n64 versus playsation sony was making more money as it would cost them 3$ to make a cd and nintendo was paying 10$ but when you have a cartridge the strucure in itself prevents priacy which caused who knows how much loss in profit. but i bet solid state would drop more in production cost the more uses it has...

 

Even though it sounds awesome, I'm sure developers and manufacturers are all about production costs. I think regardless of what could be done with cartridges, at the end of the day DVDs and Blu-Ray is less expensive to mass produce.

I think developers always go under the assumption that no matter what game they're dealing with, there IS always the chance it could flop in sales. They wouldn't want to shell out a couple hundred thousand extra for a game that might not sell up to their expectations.

 

It's all about the $$$.......I think digital downloaded games will be the next step....no physical media.

Like Apple Apps......once you purchased the game you now own it. If you ever get a new console or your HD crashes, it's on record that you purchased it, and you just re-download it.

If you delete it for room on your drive, you can always re-download said game at any time.

 

companies like Gamestop would SHIT.

they thrive off of trade-ins.. and many new game sales come from the trade-in cash...

it might be a while before they go all digital..

 

I like the idea of having them. Much more so than a DVD. Though id still like my game console to be able to play DVD/bluray

 

Remember places like Tower Records, Sam Goody......yea.

A sign of the times my friends.....Gamestop would end up on the ash heap as well.

 

interesting.....

 

cartriges in their former form (ahh, the memories of trying to get my nintendo games to work, and the thousands of different tips everyone had to get them to work), No.

But Games on SD cards make perfect sense becasue of 1) the Capacity of SD cards now-a-days and 2) the physical size. game companies could invent portable game players that played the same game as the full console. (Sega had one a long time ago that played genesis games in a handheld (nomad I think it was called))

 

I think that cartridges would be sweet for many many reasons, but I think that digital download is the way to go. They are already making HD's for consoles bigger, it would only make sense. I am so over disks. I have had 2 PS2's and 1 360 stop working because of the CD rom not able to spin or read.

Having a digital download or a SD card or something would get rid of those issues. But then sony and microsoft would lose money because I wouldn't have to run out and buy a new one because their CD Rom shit breaks.

 

the only reason i dont want it to happen soon, is because i am one of those customers...

i amass 20-30 games over a couple years and one day take about half of them to the store that i dont play anymore. usually resulting around $10 per game.

i doesnt seem like much but over a couple of years, i probably trade in a thousand dollars worth of games... and even if they only get me two new games... i've saved $120...

i have yet to buy anything off of the XBL marketplace except arcade games that arent sold in stores...

and the digital download games cost more than the used ones in the store

im ready to upgrade to digital when the time comes.. but i probably wont buy as many games knowing i cant return them for credit later...

 

^^^^

IF they went with all digital i am sure they would come up with some way to "rent" the full version of a game there are TONS of gamers like you who once they beat a game they are done with it so they trade it in. they get some money back and someone else gets a good game for less.

I keep a vast majority of my games and only trade in when i REALLY dislike a game or they make a new version that surppasses the old one. like some fighting games.

another downside to all digital you wouldnt be able to borrow games from friends

 

Don't be surprised when games are only sold online from services similar to the Apple Appstore. Console makers could easily ditch the optical drive and start installing 1TB hard drives in consoles to hold the games. The only thing holding this back is internet bandwidth.

 

Another matter is convenience. With up to $5/gal gas, would you rather make the 5+ minute drive to Gamestop and probably deal with waiting in line or possibly not getting the game at all (assuming it's a major release) or would you rather stay in your PJs and just download it while you go do other crap at home?

It doesn't seem like much and hell maybe some people enjoy going to the store and walking away with something tangible in their hands (I do, sometimes) but most of the time ordering online is easier and cheaper. They don't have to deal with overhead like sales employees, renting property and the associated utilities, making it look attractive to customers, etc.

 

If the price was the same, yes..
but often a $30 download is $15 in the store.

and yes, there is an extra appreciation on my end for buying something physical. but it's not a huge deal, I already waste tons on games.. what's another $100 a year.

I will miss looking at my collection of games.. scrolling through a list just seems lazy and boring.

 

It's going to be some time yet before everything goes digital only........high speed infastructure is not in place yet........even on 12Mbps cable it takes nearly 3 hours to get a 18GB download........