Will the cartridge ever make a comeback?

Will game cartridges ever return?

  • Total voters
    230
theNoid said:
Yes, next gen MS is not going to license BD from Sony. So they'll use some kind of flash based storage, put it on a marketable 'cartridge' looking device and sell that.

Optical media is dead (IMO).
Click to expand...

MS and bluray? Never They will continue to stick to DVD Dual Layer or go fully digital
 
And Xbox On Demand pretty much guarantees the games will always be at RRP and never at a discount.

Fuck digital distribution. Seriously.
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
And fucks us hard in the ass on our right to resell our games.
Click to expand...
I was just bitching about steam the other day and of course everyone tells me I'm wrong.

I was at Wal-Mart last night and Gothic 4 is $10 cheaper than on Steam. Good example of how Steam's prices also are not good regardless of what people say.

You pay more
You can't resell the games
In some cases you get the same DRM as the retail version
You have to run Steam as well as the game
little/no competition is not good for the consumer

The only reason I would use Steam was if I used a Mac.
 
bigdogchris said:
I was just bitching about steam the other day and of course everyone tells me I'm wrong.

I was at Wal-Mart last night and Gothic 4 is $10 cheaper than on Steam. Good example of how Steam's prices also are not good regardless of what people say.

You pay more
You can't resell the games
In some cases you get the same DRM as the retail version
You have to run Steam as well as the game
little/no competition is not good for the consumer
Click to expand...

Steam's only saving grace is the occasional sale. If Steam charged RRP for every game all the time or the highest "budget" price possible (like XBOD currently does), it wouldn't have the kind of rampant fandom that only console fanboys can rival.

The obscene territorial markups on Steam games is my biggest peeve with the service. The AUS dollar is currently worth more than the US dollar, yet games like Fallout NV and CODBO are going for US$90 on the Australian Steam, and Bad Company 2 goes for well over double on the Aussie Steam than in the US (US$69.99). The markups in brick-and-mortar stores are weakly justified by "freight" but there is zero reason for the digital markups other than pissweak publishers bowing to EB's every whim.

Steam doesn't determine these prices of course, but Valve is doing sweet FA about stopping it.
 
The 3DS is still using carts. Aside from that, the computer market in general is jumping from optical media in favor of flash storage. Apple is dropping DVD completely from their portable computers and solid-state drives that cost thousands a few years ago can be had for a tenth of the price.

"The cloud" is a horrible idea and won't work anyway until US broadband prices get to where they are in the rest of the world.
 
Last edited:
bigdogchris said:
You pay more
It's the same price as retail at launch, and in the off chance you don't want to buy it, you can catch a sale later down the line

You can't resell the games
My attention span is sufficient to avoid this pitfall

In some cases you get the same DRM as the retail version
So it's the same then?

You have to run Steam as well as the game
So?

little/no competition is not good for the consumer
Steam come christmas time says otherwise
Click to expand...

So on top of all of that, I never have to update my games, I can never lose or damage them, I can preload games and have them seconds after launch, and the list goes on. The only reason I could see anyone not wanting to use steam is if they have a mental condition similar to hoarders who need tangible items, or they're cheap and want to save a few dollars of the off chance that it's cheaper somewhere else.

To each his own though. Luckily for me, DD will dominate in the coming years.
 
I love cartridges but unfortunately they're a thing of the past. They didn't just hold game data though. Some SNES games for example, had built-in coprocessors to make them do more things than the vanilla system could do by itself. Super FX anyone? :D
 
i can see next gen consoles using downloadable content similar to steam.. which is bad for gamestop.
 
We're going to see a move away from individual storage media altogether. I think we're going to be left with a DD/retail hybrid. That is, either buy your games through DD, or buy a digital copy at a retail outlet, that possibly transfers to some sort of intermediary travel storage before it reaches your system. You go to a store with your flash drive, plug it into the machine, swipe your Credit Card, and bring it back home.

That is one hypothesis. I don't think we'll ever see a move back to dedicated solid state media.
 
The day they stop producing physical media is the day I stop gaming. And same goes for videos and music as well.

I'm a graphic designer, so to me the packaging of physical media is a form of art. I mean, people all the time will buy a CD or DVD just because they like the cover art. I don't see that going away any time soon.

But back to the subject, I think a form of the cartridge could make a comeback. Like others mentioned, with the current popularity of memory cards and USB drives, game cartridges definitely seem like a possibility.
 
3ee Dee said:
The day they stop producing physical media is the day I stop gaming. And same goes for videos and music as well.

I'm a graphic designer, so to me the packaging of physical media is a form of art. I mean, people all the time will buy a CD or DVD just because they like the cover art. I don't see that going away any time soon.

But back to the subject, I think a form of the cartridge could make a comeback. Like others mentioned, with the current popularity of memory cards and USB drives, game cartridges definitely seem like a possibility.
Click to expand...

I am a designer as well, though I don't think it effects my decision on this: I like having a complete package with tangible items....DD are not complete packages IMO.

So yes, I do agree.
 
how expensive would it be to sell games on flash drives? you can fit almost every game on a really cheap one. and if ms or sony were mass producing millions of them i cant see it costing them more then a couple dollars if that for each.
 
foursecondpin said:
how expensive would it be to sell games on flash drives? you can fit almost every game on a really cheap one. and if ms or sony were mass producing millions of them i cant see it costing them more then a couple dollars if that for each.
Click to expand...

If they were manufacturing them, it would be cheaper than that. But still not cheaper than a DVD.
 
I sure as shit hope not. Just make games consoles come with big ass HDD's and install.

ROM/Flash based distribution? ROFL, no thanks.
 
I don't see carts being the most widely used medium ever again (which is what I assumed you meant by "make a comeback")
 
The DRM thing is what I don't/won't like. I'd feel more like I was renting something for a one time fee than owning it unless I had something tangible OR the DRM was limited such that I could make my own backups. While I do like the artistic/complete package idea that comes with music and occasionally movies (special edition DVDs), I don't feel the same way about games for the most part.
 
What do you mean will cartridge ever come back? It never left. Whats funny is I just got done playing StarFox earlier today :)
 
I just scored a Neo Geo Gold AES for $50... carts are alive for me again.. :D
 
theNoid said:
Yes, next gen MS is not going to license BD from Sony. So they'll use some kind of flash based storage, put it on a marketable 'cartridge' looking device and sell that.

Optical media is dead (IMO).
Click to expand...

Agree with this.
 
I would absolutely love a return to carts...but alas, they will make us download and double the price.

Its very sad.
 
I said yes because a card like a SD card is just a cartridge in smaller scale.
 
No... stupid question, really.

Unless they somehow manage to make a faster, more space device that REQUIRES a cartridge, no way in hell.
 
I long for the days when I can blow into the cartridge and watch it magically work again! :D
 
No - streaming media is where it's going. Basically just Steam for consoles.
 
Cartridges never left. Nintendo handhelds have been using them this whole time.
 
I'd still love to see cartridges used for more than storage space like some SNES games did. Having extra co-processors (like Super FX, S-DD1, SA-1, Cx4, DSP-x, etc.) to enable extra eyecandy was always something that fascinated me.
 
Yoshiyuki Blade said:
I'd still love to see cartridges used for more than storage space like some SNES games did. Having extra co-processors (like Super FX, S-DD1, SA-1, Cx4, DSP-x, etc.) to enable extra eyecandy was always something that fascinated me.
Click to expand...

32x.jpg


We all know how that thing went.

I owned one. Only game I ever played on it was Doom. I poured countless nights playing it over and over though.
 
I wasn't quite thinking about bulky hardware add-ons like that. Some SNES games had co-processors right inside the cartridge. Starfox, Yoshi's Island, Mega Man X2/3, Super Mario RPG, Super Mario Kart and other insanely awesome SNES games had extra chips built right on the cartridge PCB and were basically transparent to the user.
 
I dont think cartidges would do anything to curb piracy these days. Sure back in the nintendo days they were hard to pirate but now with the size of store I think pretty much any cartridge produced will end up having an R4 equivalent. I do think in a lot of ways cartidges are more convenient then optical media, but I don't see it happening.
 
ScottSwing said:
Next generation's games will be released on floppies.
Click to expand...

Similar to that one device that transfered SNES games to floppy drives like the Super Nintendo Floppy Drive Expansion. A long time ago I always wondered if something similar for the N64 would be released.

The nice thing about cartrige based consoles is the cardrige port is also the accesory port, which a sortment of devices can be connected to. It's all reduntant now with todays consoles which have dedicated expansion ports.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top