Nintendo Switch

So basically carts are better than discs in terms of space now? Oh the Irony.

edited 21st Aug '15 7:53:42 PM by Karxrida

.....

So Nintendo might have been on to something back then?

Yes, irony indeed.

Can the Carts get DLC the way discs do? I know it's probably a dumb question, but I'm curious.

Yes. The DLC is stored in the system, not the game. Stuff like that hasn't been stored on the cart in years.

Also, the 3DS has DLC and it works fine.

Discs were better then.

Flash media is better now.

As another bonus, carts require less moving parts, meaning faster run and load times.

Don't they also have higher manufacturing costs compared to discs? I had heard that was a major factor in the N64's unpopularity with devs.

I could've sworn cartridges are cheaper nowadays.

this is correct, but that was back then.

I mean, SD cards can be pretty cheap.

I think discs have sorta stagnated to an extent.

They hit their peak with Blu-Ray, at least for now.

And well. Sony kinda has a exclusive rights on Blu-Ray, certainly with the games industry, which makes the format non-ideal for any of the other companies.

I can buy a 128 GB SD card off Amazon for $40. Which is much bigger than any game that wold appear on a dedicated device. They're more expensive yes, but not so much that the trade-off isn't worth it necessarily. It depends on what Nintendo is actually going for.

I think 3DS carts are cheap. If they are like that it wouldn't be that expensive and they still hold a lot of data.

3DS carts I think have a limit of 8 GB which is basically the same as a DVD. But I think they were working on having 32 GB which is more than the Wii U proprietary discs.

Reminder that the UMD was one of the reasons the PSP failed compared to the competition.

edited 21st Aug '15 8:48:58 PM by unnoun

I could have sworn it was said that Carts were cheaper than CD's somewhere.

That's why Nintendo went with them for the N64.

They don't have as much memory though. Or at least, they didn't at the time.

And that was the generation companies discovered FM Vs.

...I mean, FFVII still needed 3 discs.

edited 21st Aug '15 8:50:47 PM by unnoun

The PSP did decently enough. Let's be honest, when your competition is the juggernaut that was the Nintendo DS, any kind of performance will look like a failure in comparison.

Nintendo went with them on the N64 because Disc had terrible load times and Nintendo prefers that their games have barely any loading times. Cartridges have no moving parts so games load quicker.

edited 21st Aug '15 8:53:16 PM by Halberdier17

So in other words, now might be a viable time to return to Cartridges, cause they can do as much as CD's can now.

Considering Nintendo did pull some good stunts with Carts back in the N64 days, this'll be interesting I think.

I know they've said they have no interest in competing with the processing power of the other systems, but maybe they still have plans on that front anyway.

One advantage carts have over discs is being able to save the data directly onto the cart. It makes it a lot easier to take your save file with you if you can't use your current console for some reason.

Cartridges can surpass optical media now.

I can get a 128 GB SD card for about as much as a PS 4 game that has like less than half as much memory and way slower load times.

PS 4 games still use Blu-Ray, which still caps out at 50 Gigabytes.

edited 21st Aug '15 9:01:12 PM by unnoun

You know, carts have the benefit of that you can write the data on them.

Take any 3DS game you have, shove it into someone elses 3DS, it still has your original save file instead of not.

So if there is one thing carts have over discs, it's that the console can write data on them without "hacking" into the game.

Though that's a really minor thing, since save game files are tiny anyway and would barely take up system memory. Though I suppose that bigger carts could install DLC and updates directly to the cart instead of the system.

Though depedning on the carts design, they wouldn't get as easily scratched as disks do, so that's a plus?

Still not sure which would end up being more cost effective. Or how big they plan to make the carts.

I'd be fine with returning to carts. If Nintendo does wind up making a system that combines the consoles and handhelds it would probably be easier anyway. It wouldn't need both a disk drive and a cart slot.

A lot of Nintendo's games don't need discs, though. Splatoon, for instance, is tiny.

If some flash-drive based carts would prove faster, bigger and stronger too! and more cost effective than DVD and Blu Ray, then other companies might even adapt the model.

I mean, Blu Ray wants to hype it's "amazing visual quality" but last I checked, you can buy the latest PS 4 games digitally off the PSN store. And I don't think those are inferioir in visual quality because they are a digital download and not on a fancily named disc.

edited 21st Aug '15 9:12:23 PM by Geist-Fox

I mean.

...Iwata, may he rest in peace, was a goddamn virtual wizard of compression.

But a lot of developers might still find that amount of space appealing.

How much money will they save using carts?

If Carts can do all the stuff Discs can do now, then Nintendo might be able to do more with less.

I'm wondering how this might go now.