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[Danny Dudekisser]

The more I think about it, the more I wouldn't mind SD cards. They have a more satisfying feel than inserting discs, I would argue.

 

[DryvBy]

As long as they do physical media I'm fine. The NX is totally doomed otherwise.

I completely agree with this. Nintendo is too far behind for me to ever support their digital services. If they did away with discs, I guess the Wii U would be my last Nintendo system.

 

[ozfunghi]

The more I think about it, the more I wouldn't mind SD cards. They have a more satisfying feel than inserting discs, I would argue.

It's never gonna be SD cards obviously. The problem is, there isn't much information going around on current gen ROM cards. Speed, capacity and price.

 

[Pokemaniac]

According to what I've heard from sources within certain game engine makers... I strongly doubt Nintendo will release a console that can't handle PS4/XB1 ports. Which throws the whole cross-device media thing in jeopardy, because:

1) There will be games the handheld won't be able to run.
2) Handheld-only players aren't likely to pay $60 for Smash/MK/Splatoon and Nintendo isn't likely to sell console Smash/MK/Splatoon for $40.

Regarding #1, expecting otherwise just wouldn't be a great scenario to begin with. The console would have been really gimped, and not just for the obvious power reasons. Some control schemes are just outright impossible on a handheld.

#2 is definitely more of an issue, though. Nintendo is going to have to work to find a proper balance there.

 

[vcc]

As discussed above, how about seek-times? With smaller fragmented files i think this is just as, if not more, important.

I think for video games sequential read is more important as files are written at once and fragmentation would be less of an issue. They'd probably bunch up levels together. Open world games would probably care more about seek-time.

 

[blu]

I think for video games sequential read is more important as files are written at once and fragmentation would be less of an issue. They'd probably bunch up levels together. Open world games would probably care more about seek-time.

Seek times are not about fragmentation, though. Individual disk tracks can hold only so much data, so you inevitably need to move the head up or down the disk. Funny anecdote: on particularly bad seek-times (optical) media games used to duplicate the same very important file up and down the disk geometry, so that when the head is up north, it would not need to travel down south to read said important file.

 

[TheAngryMonkey]

I think for video games sequential read is more important as files are written at once and fragmentation would be less of an issue. They'd probably bunch up levels together. Open world games would probably care more about seek-time.

Low seek times are what make SSDs attractive, not their sequential read times or peak read rate.

I'd rather have an SSD on SATA I than a spinning disk on SATA III for example.

 

[Nanashrew]

Seek times are not about fragmentation, though. Individual disk tracks can hold only so much data, so you inevitably need to move the head up or down the disk. Funny anecdote: on particularly bad seek-times (optical) media games used to duplicate the same very important file up and down the disk geometry, so that when the head is up north, it would not need to travel down south to read said important file.

And now they moved to installs. It feels more and more like everyone is trying to bypass the discs because they're just too slow and inefficient.

 

[ozfunghi]

Seek times are not about fragmentation, though. Individual disk tracks can hold only so much data, so you inevitably need to move the head up or down the disk. Funny anecdote: on particularly bad seek-times (optical) media games used to duplicate the same very important file up and down the disk geometry, so that when the head is up north, it would not need to travel down south to read said important file.

So, can anybody give an estimate of how big the advantages (capacity increase etc) would be from moving to 30nm ROM chips?

Is current (affordable) ROM technology good (fast) enough not having to resort to installing games on a HDD? All things considered. Or in what scenario's would it (not) be.

 

[M3d10n]

Low seek times are what make SSDs attractive, not their sequential read times or peak read rate.

I'd rather have an SSD on SATA I than a spinning disk on SATA III for example.

SSDs perform noticeably better than mechanical drives even over USB 2.0.

 

[M3d10n]

#2 is definitely more of an issue, though. Nintendo is going to have to work to find a proper balance there.

My prediction: games like Smash and MK will have two SKUs, a $40 portable and a $60 console. Digital buyers of one get a discount on the other, or the console version grants access to both SKUs and handheld owners can upgrade their handheld SKUs by paying $20. If you only own one SKU you can stream it to the other unit, to play the handheld version on the TV or the console version on the handheld.

 

[KingBroly]

So...

Assuming NX uses ROM's, that means saves won't be on the cart, but instead on their cloud save service that they talked up, right?

 

[Frosted]

Yeahhhh!!! We want cartridges and memory expansion packs!!!

 

[Pokemaniac]

So...

Assuming NX uses ROM's, that means saves won't be on the cart, but instead on their cloud save service that they talked up, right?

They'd probably be just like 3DS carts, which have a small amount of rewritable save memory.

My prediction: games like Smash and MK will have two SKUs, a $40 portable and a $60 console. Digital buyers of one get a discount on the other, or the console version grants access to both SKUs and handheld owners can upgrade their handheld SKUs by paying $20. If you only own one SKU you can stream it to the other unit, to play the handheld version on the TV or the console version on the handheld.

That's a possibility, but it would hurt the shared library thing a bit. Part of me thinks that they may have a single SKU, but get a bit more flexible with prices and split the difference (so $50) for games that would have traditionally been on both.

 

[Schnozberry]

They'd probably be just like 3DS carts, which have a small amount of rewritable save memory.

I would assume if (big IF) this is the route they are going, and Macronix has been able to shrink from 75nm to 32nm for their ROM Technology, we would see carts that have enough rewritable space on board for DLC and saves. That would allow Nintendo to get away with a cursory amount of Flash (maybe 128GB) in the console and not have to worry about the reliability concerns and space constraints created by optical drives. We might even see the power supply make it inside the console this time. What a time to be alive.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

They'd probably be just like 3DS carts, which have a small amount of rewritable save memory.

I think Nintendo will ditch saves on the cart for NX to cut costs and have the save files be stored on the system's flash/HDD and/or uploaded to a cloud service.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I would assume if (big IF) this is the route they are going, and Macronix has been able to shrink from 75nm to 32nm for their ROM Technology, we would see carts that have enough rewritable space on board for DLC and saves. That would allow Nintendo to get away with a cursory amount of Flash (maybe 128GB) in the console and not have to worry about the reliability concerns and space constraints created by optical drives. We might even see the power supply make it inside the console this time. What a time to be alive.

Storing anything other than saves on rewritable memory in the cart just doesn't seem likely to me.

I think Nintendo will ditch saves on the cart for NX to cut costs and have the save files be stored on the system's flash/HDD and/or uploaded to a cloud service.

That is a possibility. There will definitely be local storage, though. Not having it means an online only console.

 

[jts]

That is a possibility. There will definitely be local storage, though. Not having it means an online only console.

How would expect an online only console to store umm... digital games and stuff?

Unless you mean a streaming only console.

Which is even funnier than a online only console from Nintendo

 

[MCN]

That is a possibility. There will definitely be local storage, though. Not having it means an online only console.

Having cloud storage for the saves etc would really help with the shared games thing. You could seamlessly carry on where you left off on either the home machine of the handheld without any mucking about transferring saves over, especially for downloaded games.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Having cloud storage for the saves etc would really help with the shared games thing. You could seamlessly carry on where you left off on either the home machine of the handheld without any mucking about transferring saves over, especially for downloaded games.

Definitely, I'm just (kind of obtusely) saying that local saves will definitely still be an option.

 

[thefro]

As discussed above, how about seek-times? With smaller fragmented files i think this is just as, if not more, important.

The access speed is 150 nanoseconds for DS carts according to this teardown. So that's clearly going to be better than a blu-ray drive or traditional hard drive.

It's really hard to say without knowing the specs/cost of what Macronix would be putting together for Nintendo.

 

[stan423321]

Seek times are not about fragmentation, though. Individual disk tracks can hold only so much data, so you inevitably need to move the head up or down the disk. Funny anecdote: on particularly bad seek-times (optical) media games used to duplicate the same very important file up and down the disk geometry, so that when the head is up north, it would not need to travel down south to read said important file.

Indeed. This annoyed me to hell when I started to browse PC files of Bioshock Inifinite, they did the same thing for one reason or another. Cue every weapon sound being duplicated eight times or so.

 

[Schnozberry]

Storing anything other than saves on rewritable memory in the cart just doesn't seem likely to me.

Depends on how expensive it is to throw some NAND inside the cart. Could be prohibitive.

 

[nkarafo]

Yes, solid state for everything. Mechanical parts are always a bottlenecking, loud, fragile factor in all devices.

 

[MacTag]

Because a console that merely plays handheld games in HD would be pointless? The market has quite a few failed handheld/mobile game TV boxes to show that's an ill fated path.

The only one I'm aware of in the console space is Vita/PSTV, unless you go further back to Nintendo add ons like the Super Game Boy or GB Player. If there is a singular platform across handheld and console I'd expect something more like TG16/Express or MD/Nomad, where we get the home console NX first in March 2017 followed by a shrunk down handheld variant in 2018 or later. All signs are pointing to NX debuting as a console and the renewed focus on 3DS makes me think a future handheld is likely quite a ways out.

This seems like a weird position to have.

Nintendo should be talking to all of the big third party devs and getting their input on features that they want, or asking them how they'd like features X, Y or Z that they are considering. It can't hurt at all to ask around, and when they have all of the input they can decide if these features and decisions make sense for Nintendo as well.

Doing what they can to appease western third party devs can't really be a negative, as long as they don't compromise on their own needs for the console.

Now, if the western devs offer full support -even if Nintendo does do everything they ask- is a completely different question. But this notion of "why bother trying, it'll never work" doesn't really make sense in the business world.

Edit:

Actually, as has been said before in these threads, the 3DS max limit was 8GB, though no game used that much. So if we take your extrapolation that way we get 64GB, which would have caused a lot less doom and gloom haha

Oh sure, Nintendo should be talking to everyone when putting a platform together. I guess I just don't see the need to hold back technology due to what's likely more an outdated perception issue than anything. It really all comes down to costs and if Nintendo can hit the right balance I doubt western publishers would care about them dropping antiquated disc media.

That says 32Gb. As in, 32 gigabits, or 8GB (gigabytes). It's referring to 3DS cards, basically.

Slight correction but 32Gb is actually 4GB.

While Macronix said early on that their format could go to 8GB I've heard speculation that Nintendo never pursued that as their 3DS filesystem maxxes out at 4GB per file.

 

[MacTag]

Gamestop exec Mike Hogan responded to the cart rumors during their quarterly conference call!

We saw these rumors, and of course we can’t comment on them. I don’t think we know anything about it anyway, but certainly for us physical media is a good thing.

The only difference would be on the refurbishment and pre-owned side, and actually cartdriges are much simpler to refurbish and repackage, so there’s a little bit of an advantage in that direction.

But it’s early, and we keep a cool head. Certainly I would say that there are rumors of that type, just confirms that this is an important console for next year, it will have physical media, we will play a role in it, our pre-owned business will also play a role, so we’re excited about that, and of course we love Nintendo IP, so… it’s all good news.