think cartridges could come back?

[Niku-Sama]

i was thinking, before my computer did a strange funky hardlock thing after i reintalled everything meaning its a hardware issue...oh crap sorry

any way i was wondering could cartridges come back?

a few years ago the storage capacity of a cart and the sound wasnt great but both of those facts are facts of the past now...chips have huge ammounts of capacity now and with the right programming the sound could be just as good as any thing else

the game industry ditched carts for the storage and sound reasons to CD's but CD's have a load time, carts dont, and at the time of the PSX and N64 the hardware of the N64 was superior but lacked the capacity

cost isnt much of an issue...if you thing about it game proceses always seem to be $50 for a new game and $20 for an older game....weither it was a cart or a DVD/CD....now you would have thought since they moved to discs it would have been cheaper for them and in turn cheaper for us but something just didnt change i guess.

any way what you yous think about all this?

[theMonster]

Absolutely not, the cost is too high. It costs soooooooo much less to press off a cd or dvd than it does to make a cartridge. If you want to see a great example of how costly carrtidges are, look no further than the old NEO GEO. A 250-500MB cartridge cost $200-$300 where a 4.7GB DVD game costs <$50 on the NEOGEO GOLD CD.

[deathman20]

Ya cost is huge in cartridges for large amounts of space. Think a cartridge as a flash card, now what does a 4gig flash card run? A few $$$. Now take a look at a DVD or a CD, thats like a $.40 or less store bought and not even on sale.

Thats why I think cartridges will die out except maybe the big N might use them still in portables unless they really want to try competing with sony's PSP with graphics which they might need to ditch the cartridge.

Unless flash prices drop down to the $1 range for a large card, I highly doubt they will be coming back anytime soon.

[ManOman]

The biggest issue with carts vs. CD's in the manufacturing process is that carts need to be assembled.
CD's come straight off the line all done. No assembly required and they cost literally .05 cents to make mainly due to the minimal amount of labor involved in the process.
Unfortunately labor is the most cost prohibitive and expensive area of just about any manufacturing process.

[cornbread]

I always liked the cartridge better than the cd, but I doubt it will ever come back.

[Lifthanger]

I guess if the trend continues and more consoles support additional harddisks, you could just copy (or install?!) the game onto the disk and loading times will no longer be an issue.
One 400GB drive for 200$ would settle this problem once and for all. :)

One of my friends has an xbox with linux installed, I don't know how this works, but with his games on the HD, there are no loadtimes anymore. Was surprised in a positive way, when I saw this.

[Dylruss]

I just enjoy the usb hard drives, they are pretty cheap i.e. $100 for a 20gig, thats about as close to a cartridge I will get, it just isn't feesable. i.e. zip/jazz disks.

Thats for a computer, but as far as game consoles, we will never see it. Like everyone said that cd's/dvd's are cheaper, and I would rather have a cd then storing those stinking cartridges. My n64 and all those games are just taking up space.

[9mmCensor]

Pairing optical (miniCDs, UMD) with flash drives would be best. PSP almost has it, I wonder if it can be made to work in the most efficient way...

Read of the CD, and store savegames and common used files on the memory stick, and read them from there, instead of using the optical drive all the time (battery killer).

[deathman20]

Well I got a USB harddrive too. 160gig in a case for under $130 bucks :) But my guess is your talking abou those smaller drives not the standard ones in teh case.

[Ha_hA_HA!]

I think the next big step will be something similar to steam, where you don't actually buy a physical game, you download it (yes, even on consoles). So no, I doubt cartridges will come back, and we will probably see CD and DVD based games disappear.

[deathman20]

Even though steam way is nice, I still see people picking up CD/DVD's (more so DVDs in the future here) for a while. You need a good connection to download that game within a reasonable amount of time.

But cutting out the retailers/places to print the boxes/dvd's and such would reduce the cost, or more profit going back to the maker (which is more proberable).

[theMonster]

I think the next big step will be something similar to steam, where you don't actually buy a physical game, you download it (yes, even on consoles). So no, I doubt cartridges will come back, and we will probably see CD and DVD based games disappear.

I bought Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 via download. Burned my CD, installed and Atari even gave me a crack for a no CD error that they use to defeat warez hackers. Cost me $24 vs $49 for the retail box version :D

[kukyfrope]

As much as I love blowing into NES games trying to get them to work, I don't want to see carts make a comeback. CD/DVDs are so much easier to store and transport.

[Niku-Sama]

i dont ever rember blowing into SNES, N64, Jaguar, Gameboy or any other carts to get them to work....

a top loading NES doesent have that issue....but unless you bought it durring the short period of time when it want $120 your boned.....

old NES systems used cheap connectors thats why that problem persists

[kukyfrope]

Haha are you kidding? That top-loader stuff is for newbies :) I had a Nintendo when I was 4 years old, and I'm almost 21 now. Old school is where it's at even if they have "cheap connectors"

[Niku-Sama]

uhh...the top loading one is pretty old....and i am not talking about the super nes one either....

and if top loading was for newbies then all of japan is a newbie then

[TollhouseFrank]

scratch cd/dvd= $50 coaster

scratch cartidge = $50 game that is 1 scratch uglier

[Radical]

Plus loading times are much faster with cartridges and they don't have to spin so they don't make noise.

[Aslan]

I think the next big step will be something similar to steam, where you don't actually buy a physical game, you download it (yes, even on consoles). So no, I doubt cartridges will come back, and we will probably see CD and DVD based games disappear.

I foresee this as well, but only when everyone has broadband and the new 802.16a wireless standard comes out (which supposedly will have a range of 30 miles). It's not practical enough at this time, which Infinium Labs will find out soon enough (if they still exist, that is :rolleyes: ).

As much as I love blowing into NES games trying to get them to work, I don't want to see carts make a comeback. CD/DVDs are so much easier to store and transport.

Heh, I remember doing this with my Genesis cartridges as well.

Despite their benefits, such as lack of loading times, IMO cartridges are gone for good. Discs are so much easier and cheaper to produce that hardly any manufacturers will continue to create them (with the exception of Nintendo, I suppose ;) ).

[Niku-Sama]

scratch cd/dvd= $50 coaster

scratch cartidge = $50 game that is 1 scratch uglier

Plus loading times are much faster with cartridges and they don't have to spin so they don't make noise.

well yea both have their advantages and dis-advantages

[deathman20]

Yet the main advantages of not using them

- Cheap
- Stores lots of data
- Did I mention cheap?
- Small, can scratch easy so they buyer might buy a replacement

I had another one but forgot what it was when I was typing doh :bang head

[OC Noob]

I didn't have time to read all the posts, but the closest we'll get to carts would be solid state media, which should take dramatic jump in capacity soon. That company that was developing storage cards for Xbox 360 was developing 80 gb solid state media.

[deathman20]

Mmmm solid state drives. Finally the bottleneck of the computer will be getting a boost. Question is, how much will that be hehe.

[ctrl_alt_del_]

I didn't have time to read all the posts, but the closest we'll get to carts would be solid state media, which should take dramatic jump in capacity soon. That company that was developing storage cards for Xbox 360 was developing 80 gb solid state media.


anyone got any linkage on this subject? sounds like interesting reading!

[Ha_hA_HA!]

Umm, carts ARE solid state media, aren't they? I think it will be a LONG time before the price/capacity issue is anywhere near feasable again. By then superfast broadband will be the norm, and so will solid state pc/console hard drives, so why even bother?

[zexmarquies01]

I don't really see cart comming back, other than in hand held systems.

But i sure do miss them.

Like the SNES, that thing wasn't supposed to be able to even support polygons at all.

but, they created the force FX chip ( i THINK thats what it was called ) the carts had its own type of bios, which would skip the SNES's bios, and allow it to use polygons ( StarFrox )

and the fact that you can save your data on your actual cart with the game. and not have to go out and buy a memory card or memory stick.

The only problem with them is stupid prices. if prices were lower, this wouldn't be a problem.

And with some internal memory in the system, they could have multple carts for one game.

but again the prices. look at the prices for the memory sticks for the PSP. like 59 bucks for a 256 ( or was it a 128? i forget ) meg stick.

lets see...60 bucks for 256 megs, or 50 bucks for 4.7 gigs? ( and that will chance with the PS3's Blu-ray discs )

Carts will be missed. but, unless someone finds a new way to making them for ALOT cheaper...currently DVD is the way to go. ( other than a HDD )

[deathman20]

Ya thats what they can do, instead of DVD's now, ship out harddrives with games on them lol.

[Niku-Sama]

Umm, carts ARE solid state media, aren't they?

yes, they are, but i just let them go on about it for a minute to see if any thing useful came outa it..

lately i have been taking NES carts apart to find a treasure and all of them havent been what i am looking so far (going to buy a few more tommorow) and they all have basicly old EPROM's....like the old long bios chips....some have 1 some have 4 it all depends on the game and when its made but they re solid state (some have batteries too!)

the treasure i am looking for is, some of the REALLY old NES games were acually reprogramed japanese Famicom cames stuffed into a big NES cart with an adaptor thats IS NOT hard wired into the Famicom cart...i need this adaptor for a project....

when i find one i'll post pics if any one is interested

I don't really see cart comming back, other than in hand held systems.
But i sure do miss them.
Like the SNES, that thing wasn't supposed to be able to even support polygons at all.
but, they created the force FX chip ( i THINK thats what it was called ) the carts had its own type of bios, which would skip the SNES's bios, and allow it to use polygons ( StarFrox )
and the fact that you can save your data on your actual cart with the game. and not have to go out and buy a memory card or memory stick.
The only problem with them is stupid prices. if prices were lower, this wouldn't be a problem.
And with some internal memory in the system, they could have multple carts for one game.



its the Super FX chip....stunt race FX ans Starfox had it...thered a 3rd but its name escapes me now....
other games did do 3d with differen chips...MegaMan X2/X3 have a special chip that capcom devloped that use polygons on the SNES...LOTS of japanese games use polygons as well

then there are the games that dont have ANY special chips in them that have 3D properties...Any one rember Race Drivin'?...i have it on SNES...only it SUCKS ASS...Mario Kart has some 3d properties and theres also a game i have yet to get my hands on called Pilotwings thats got 3D properties aswell...alot of the Square RPG's have some aswell


and to think sega needed the 32X...a crappy expencive addon to do stuff like that and the SNES just put chips into carts and it all ran on existing hardware....all at the cost of any other game...werid how different companes think

[C0oLl2iCef0o]

Arg, I hate catridges, for reasons that cannot be disclosed here, if the Big N had CD's for their N64, they would've mopped the floor with the PSX.

[OC Noob]

anyone got any linkage on this subject? sounds like interesting reading!


Sorry I don't havbe time to search, but if you do some digging on Xbox 2 and hard drive you can find them. If Xboxaddict.com still has the old articles and links I read some articles on that site.