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[Jawbreaker]

Yeah, PC is great for Steam, but I'm just saying to say "cartridges are for nostalgia" isn't giving it a fair shake at all. You're not going to see Sony, MS or Nintendo release a digital only console as their one and only system. People have listed the positives for a cart and nostalgia isn't number 1 on that list.

I didn't say that was the only reason for wanting cartridges, but I think nostalgia is definitely one of the reasons people are clamoring for them in these threads.

 

[Rodin]

Please be true, i don't want to go dd only (which is what i'd do if discs show up again).

Anyway after that Macronix report i think this is another small confirmation.

No no i believe you and Nintendo

Spoiler

well no, really not. Let me have my "doubts"

Yeah i mean, why would they tell the truth to shareholders

 

[MacTag]

- Manufacturing process takes longer.

This isn't really true, card games are written post manufacturing just like disc games. It was true back in the 1990s when carts were literally small circuit boards being assembled but it's not the case with modern media. Now it's basically burning a disc vs flashing a card.

- Less card manufacturing facilities than disk ones.

This however is generally true but it's it also isn't inherent to the media itself. Custom optical discs can face the same limited supply issues, like PSP did with UMD. It's more an issue for 1st parties though since they're the one sourcing official suppliers for their closed platforms, it's not like EA or Activision can just get their Bluray games pressed wherever they want.

- Due to the above, the royalties tend to be higher.

I'm not sure if this is the case today either? Do 3DS and Vita games really carry a higher licensing fee than Wii U and PS4 games?

- And with all of the above factors, more planning is demanded due to the increased risks.

The only real planning issue is potential supply shortages, and that tends to be a seasonal concern as well. And a single card NX format would demand significantly less planning and risk than dealing with dual card and disc NX formats. I think it's more an issue of one format versus two than card versus disc if NX is really headed in the direction Iwata telegraphed.

 

[shark sandwich]

The handle sure wasn't though.

The handle was kind of dumb. But it was pretty incredible how they crammed some powerful hardware into a tiny box with excellent cooling.

 

[massoluk]

This. I've lost a lot of good soldiers to the horrors of discs getting scratched.

*sheds tear for Melee*

My list of victims to CD scratched:

FF VII, IX, Xenogears, Castlevania SotN.

I want cartridge or game cards to come to home console, the one big disadvantage was the space, that's no longer true.

 

[The Main Event]

No optical disc drive is the other big news here. Please bring back quiet consoles.

 

[Bots are better than you]

No optical disc drive is the other big news here. Please bring back quiet consoles.

Hmmm, you know, we would need water-cooled consoles then, or games that are pretty much less demanding. ^^

Still, no disc-drive would make it more quite!

 

[MacTag]

The nostalgia for cartridges is strong.

Funny, I'd also say most of the arguments for optical discs are rooted in nostalgia.

 

[E-phonk]

As an owner of a disfunctional dreamcast due it being unable to read discs, I can only applaud this. Ofcourse also because i'd like the idea that handheld and console share the same library.

 

[shark sandwich]

No optical disc drive is the other big news here. Please bring back quiet consoles.

It was almost painful listening to my Wii U's disc drive trying to handle Xenoblade Chronicles X. I felt like I was abusing the poor machine. Same was true with the original Xenoblade on Wii.

 

[wild wild rice]

As an owner of a disfunctional dreamcast due it being unable to read discs, I can only applaud this. Ofcourse also because i'd like the idea that handheld and console share the same library.

Between my friend and I we have THREE copies of Shenmue in great condition, none of which can start up the first disc for whatever fucking reason. Supposedly this is a problem people know about? All my other Dreamcast discs still work fine.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Funny, I'd also say most of the arguments for optical discs are rooted in nostalgia.

That very well may be so! The difference is all recent home consoles have been (and continue to be) disc-based, so there's nothing to be nostalgic about. Furthermore, people still purchase movies on DVD and Blu-ray. I guess you can be nostalgic about multi-CD jewel cases and black-bottomed discs. -shrugs-

 

[Ryouji Gunblade]

Will this shorten load times? If so, that's a big benefit.

 

[:Motorbass]

Funny, I'd also say most of the arguments for optical discs are rooted in nostalgia.

Quite the percentage of ppl have only ever had consoles with discs I can imagine.

 

[BitStyle]

If this would mean what I think, which is buying one game (cartridge), and being able to play it on both nx console and handheld, then count me in!

 

[Zarovitch]

Is cartridge would support dlc and path. Patch are big these days. You'll need to to download patch and dlc on both device.

Do you think it's a problem?

 

[Rösti]

If they went with carts, who would they go with? Their ties with Masushita/Panasonic seem severed, and Matrix semiconductor is kinda shitty.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...50&s1=7336409.PN.&OS=PN/7336409&RS=PN/7336409

Maybe holo mini-squares?

Akonia Holographics took over that patent a few years ago. On their homepage there is this:

5) ROM (6 Issued US Patents)

Akonia has a number of patents pertaining to read-only holographic drives and replication of read-only media for content distribution (US8786923, US8141782). A compact prototype design developed for Nintendo is capable of storing 5GB of information on a postage stamp-sized ROM card (US7551336).

Source: http://akoniaholographics.com/patents/

 

[massoluk]

Quite the percentage of ppl have only ever had consoles with discs I can imagine.

Ahh, the joy of never having booting screen/loading screen, and pressing power button to play the game on a home console.
/sniff

Is cartridge would support dlc and path. Patch are big these days. You'll need to to download patch and dlc on both device.

Do you think it's a problem?

3DS and Vita games have patches and DLC

 

[GhostBed]

God I hope this isn't true, cartridges are ugly as fuck and just annoying to deal with, frankly. Why move away from discs? Os there a point or would this just be a gimmick?

 

[Ricky_R]

Would be cool. Are there any significant advantages for using Blu-ray instead of cartridges when it comes to video games? Aside from space? I imagine space wouldn't be an issue for them if they go this route.

 

[SUPARSTARX]

How much data can they store on a "next gen" NX console cartridge if such a thing can exist?

 

[Alienous]

If this would mean what I think, which is buying one game (cartridge), and being able to play it on both nx console and handheld, then count me in!

.

But if there's a 'NX Console' and 'NX Portable' version of the same game on shelves I'm out.

Surely, considering also downloading games, it'll be one size fits all.

 

[Zombie James]

Would be cool. Are there any significant advantages for using Blu-ray instead of cartridges when it comes to video games? Aside from space? I imagine space wouldn't be an issue for them if they go this route.

Space would definitely be an issue because of cost. The more ROM/flash, the more expensive it is.

 

[:Motorbass]

cartridges are ugly as fuck and just annoying to deal with, frankly.

I'd say that for discs tbh

 

[Alienous]

I want Gameboy sized cartridges. Even if they can make them smaller.

 

[zigg]

God I hope this isn't true, cartridges are ugly as fuck and just annoying to deal with, frankly. Why move away from discs? Os there a point or would this just be a gimmick?

I don't understand anyone voting disc over cartridge on the annoyance factor. Anyone who's tried to borrow a disc from someone who doesn't understand the concept of cases (e.g. every other patron at a library) can attest that discs' fragility is by far more annoying than any annoyance cards could possibly have.

 

[paradise_circus]

Will this shorten load times? If so, that's a big benefit.

not really if the NX uses common hdd

 

[Oppo]

all hail the TurboExpress! it plays the exact games as the TurboGrafx 16!

I'm gonna make a huge ass snap on enclosure shaped like a NES cartridge for ya'll to snap your little NX cards into since so many seem to be deeply into the idea of a half dozen games taking up a duffel bag of plastic. Imma be rich.

 

[Rösti]

Also, now could be a good time to revisit the Nintendo files patent application for stationary game console without optical disk thread.

No new development on that since March this year however.

 

[metalslimer]

They'd be better off going digital only at this rate. I cant imagine how much cartridges to store the games of today would cost assuming this is for the console and not the handheld

 

[Refreshment.01]

This isn't really true, card games are written post manufacturing just like disc games. It was true back in the 1990s when carts were literally small circuit boards being assembled but it's not the case with modern media. Now it's basically burning a disc vs flashing a card.


This however is generally true but it's it also isn't inherent to the media itself. Custom optical discs can face the same limited supply issues, like PSP did with UMD. It's more an issue for 1st parties though since they're the one sourcing official suppliers for their closed platforms, it's not like EA or Activision can just get their Bluray games pressed wherever they want.


I'm not sure if this is the case today either? Do 3DS and Vita games really carry a higher licensing fee than Wii U and PS4 games?


The only real planning issue is potential supply shortages, and that tends to be a seasonal concern as well. And a single card NX format would demand significantly less planning and risk than dealing with dual card and disc NX formats. I think it's more an issue of one format versus two than card versus disc if NX is really headed in the direction Iwata telegraphed.

You took the post out of context. Someone asked:' "what are the potential downsides for 3rd parties if the NX used a cartridge format?".

The things i listed are issues thid party developers in Japan have faced even in the DS and 3DS eras. Regulars of the Media Create threads have seen this happening at one stage or the other in terms of supplies and shipments of game units.

Believe me, i didn't made that post in a vaccum. im aware of what you wrote, the problems are not as pronounced as when the ROMs operated like the N64 days and it predecesors. i never claimed it was the case. But issues still exits.

However, given that Nintendo would be able to sustain the system by themselves more than ever before and that the 3rd parties that will surely suuport the system will be used to that anyway (most of them will be the ones that support the 3DS now) the problem mitigates.

 

[stan423321]

you know what would be cool, they could release a cheap add-on for console nx that would allow you to plug dozen carts in and select them from menu like they were digital. not going to happen but hey, it's nice to think about it

you know what would be even cooler, they could relaunch nintendo power cart burning service. heck they could make it so you can download a game and burn a cart at home. not going to happen but hey, it's nice to think about it

you know what would be coolest tho, they could make regional lockout work by putting gps into cart. then we could defeat it with tinfoil arranged like th- *INTERRUPTED BY NINJAS*

 

[The Artisan]

so it won't be a blu ray player?

 

[OrbitalBeard]

They'd be better off going digital only at this rate. I cant imagine how much cartridges to store the games of today would cost assuming this is for the console and not the handheld

The cartridges would be for both NX form factors. Otherwise, this idea doesn't make a lot of sense.

But yeah, there would definitely be some issues with cost. Nintendo would have to give some pretty sweet financial incentives to third parties.

 

[shark sandwich]

How much data can they store on a "next gen" NX console cartridge if such a thing can exist?

SD cards go up to at least 128 GB. 32GB and lower are really cheap nowadays (under $10 for some class 10 32GB SD cards on Amazon).

 

[Maebe]

My kneejerk reaction is that it would be really stupid to alienate third parties like that but I guess nintendo has long given up on appealing to them at all with home consoles.

 

[Outrun]

I want a return to tape like in the Speccy days....

Seriously though, I think the NX may be a combination of both.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I'd be okay with this. I like nostalga. But SD card transfer speeds are hot ass.

But meh...if the card/cart is used to just transfer the data to the internal hdd, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'd rather not return to running games off carts.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Has someone linked back to that thread a few months ago where someone in logistics broke down the cost savings of shipping one SKU of a game in a smaller cartridge box than a regular disc in a standard size?

 

[Zarovitch]

so it won't be a blu ray player?

I don't think we will ever see à Nintendo console that play dvd or blu-ray. Personally i don't care.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

so it won't be a blu ray player?

Why would they bother? Everything is about streaming now, especially as channels and content providers start their own services.

 

[Zombie James]

But meh...if the card/cart is used to just transfer the data to the internal hdd, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'd rather not return to running games off carts.

In that case it would be no different that what Sony and MS do now, except you'd be increasing costs for consumers and third parties for no reason.

 

[phanphare]

I hope all these cartridge rumors are true. the good far outweighs the bad for the end consumer imo, especially with how it can improve the actual console.

 

[Madao]

all i'm getting is that a lot of people never owned a handheld this gen.

 

[Dark Cloud]

In that case it would be no different that what Sony and MS do now, except you'd be increasing costs for consumers and third parties for no reason.

How do you know costs are going up for consumers?

 

[OrbitalBeard]

all i'm getting is that a lot of people never owned a handheld this gen.

To be fair, when was the last time you played a 50 GB Vita or 3DS game?

 

[Mithos]

SD cards go up to at least 128 GB. 32GB and lower are really cheap nowadays (under $10 for some class 10 32GB SD cards on Amazon).

SD standard - Up to 2GB SD
SDHC standard - over 2GB - 32GB
SDXC standard - over 32GB - 2TB

Source: https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/capacity/

 

[Krejlooc]

Cartridges, as they were originally introduced, were small ROM* memory chips, which would plug into a memory-expansion bus, so they would map directly into the address space of the CPU. That last bit is very important, as that meant that once the cartridge was in the slot, there was nothing for the game to load - all its assets and code were already in the address space of the CPU!

Cards (MS, SD, etc), in contrast, are just another file medium, with a data-transfer protocol and all. That is, data from them has to be explicitly loaded into the CPU address space - namely in RAM. Cards' great advantage over mechanical file media, particularly optical, comes from seek times - no mechanical parts - no inertia.

So when did ROM cartridge become cards? That I don't know precisely, but I do know the DS carts were already cards, and not ROM cartridges - you had to read their content into the CPU RAM, before you could do anything with that content. The immediate tradeoff from that was that small amounts of directly-mappable memory was substituted for large amounts of memory that had to be loaded chunk by chunk into the CPU address space.

Another thing that cards proliferated was 'flash emulation' - where you get a flash-based device to respond to the data-transfer protocol via a small controller in the middle, so that you could use much larger flash-based media as the physical storage, but the game console would still see those as game cards. That was also possible to do with the ROM cartridges via a small SRAM buffer which would pre-load the desired content from the flash medium, but apparently that was more tricky to implement.

* CD-ROMs, DVDs and BluRay discs are also ROMs, but their access tech supposes a reading mechanisms with a moving head and a disc spinner - something ROM chips don't need.

Read through the entire topic waiting for someone to say this.

 

[Vertti]

all i'm getting is that a lot of people never owned a handheld this gen.

Yeah it's puzzling how people are talking about nostalgia when DS/3DS have used carts over 10 years now.

Carts seem like a good idea and we have got some really good arguments why it would be a smart move. Go for it Nintendo!

 

[stan423321]

so it won't be a blu ray player?

This is actually good news in the long run, since 1) it hasn't got to be contaminated with Cinavia, 2) very few people buy Blu-rays anyway compared to DVDs at their golden years, 3) no one stops third party devs from releasing a XBMC clone on it.

Note that Wii U got a lot of streaming channels apps, and even old Wii got some.

Granted, for those of us liking owning the movies as opposed to renting them there aren't any major online stors that I'm aware of, but the price of an average Blu-ray player is completely acceptable if you really have none.