would you still buy a cartridge based console made in 2008+?

[alphagamer]

if another cartridge based console was released these days, would you buy it?

i think i would, as i love cartridge based consoles, i love the feel cartridges have to them. plus they load faster and are sturdier.

just imagine the possibilities of a cartridge based console with today's technology.

[kammedo]

And the prices ;)
Compact flash would probably be the best choice, and making it the most pirated console ever :lol:

[Yakumo]

Not if it's going to suffer from a modern N64 syndrome. If it was perfectly capable of competing with disc based systems I'd buy it but some how I can't see it. making a cartridge that could hold at least 4gig of data is going to be very expensive compared to pressing a DVD like disc.

Yakumo

[ASSEMbler]

IF you mean holographic, yes.

[Shakey_Jake33]

The big issue would be cost. The RRP of games is already quite insane, without a proprietory cartridge format sending prices even higher. I'm just not prepared to pay £60 for a game anymore, which is the kind of prices we'd be looking at. If another format had the same game for £29.99, which would you choose?

As far as loading times go, I welcome the HDD install option coming to the 360. I don't welcome the HDD prices, however.

[Taucias]

A cartridge system would always been more expensive and offer less storage for developers than a disc system. So no. It doesn't make sense.

[Twimfy]

Yes. Can't beat the satisfying clunk as a cartridge pushes its way through two plastic flaps and clutches beautifully into position.

PCB connector sex at its finest and sluttiest. The CILFS of the golden age are great but bringing in some fresh plastic would be awesome.

[Warakia]

Yeah cartridges "feel" right, but to be honest. They seem so unreliable now. My SFC carts are losing my saves and my FF6 cart has scrambled graphics now!

If my PS2 has a problem, I buy a new PS2. If there is a problem with a cart you have to replace the carts one by one. I have never had a CD or DVD stop working on me.

Anyhoo, for me, Hard Disc installs are the future for me. Or partial installs at the very least. Handheld devices should follow the example as well imho. We do not carry music cds around, so why do I have a box of umd with me now?

[violentsnake]

If there was a way to make it more affordable while still holding as much as at least a dual layer DVD I'd totally buy it.

It'll never happen though. It probably costs next to nothing to press a disc compared to the price of manufacturing a cartridge.

[mooseblaster]

I also agree that the costs of such a system's games and their required capacity in the modern era would make it too costly for many consumers. Even the cheapest 8GB SD card is £13, and that's just to make it compete storage-wise in the modern era!

The fact is that even if you were intending to build a system harking back to the classic era, the costs would make it accessible to only the most-hardcore retro enthusiasts. Take the XGamesStation as an example at a price of just under $100 for a system that can barely do 16-bit.

So for that reason, I'm out.

[Shadowlayer]

Well a ROM version of a SD card should be cheaper, and faster than a DVD, but is still considerably more expensive than the later.

I agree that the feeling of a cart is unique, but the related storage issues were a problem 12 years ago, and today well, is just impossible to go back.

But 10 years from now when NAND SSDs become commonplace (and games are 50GB and up :lol:) using those will be much like using carts was.

[MottZilla]

Yeah cartridges "feel" right, but to be honest. They seem so unreliable now. My SFC carts are losing my saves and my FF6 cart has scrambled graphics now!

You need to replace the battery, this is very easy. For the graphics issue you probably need to clean the cartridge metal contacts. For some reason people don't seem to believe that you ever need to clean your game cartridges. But the fact is you do need to do that. Once you clean it you will get much better results. Honestly most of the problems with the NES probably had little to do with the cartridge ZIF socket and more to do with people never cleaning their carts.

If a new cartridge based system were made, which is certainly possible, it would require new technology. Like a cartridge with some kind of massive cheap optical memory or something. I would welcome such a device as discs are so easily damaged. But it's not very likely with the Compact Disc concept so well developed and accepted.

[Shadowlayer]

Like a cartridge with some kind of massive cheap optical memory or something. I would welcome such a device as discs are so easily damaged. But it's not very likely with the Compact Disc concept so well developed and accepted.

You mean like the DVDRAM, which came in caddies?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/DVD-RAM_FUJIFILM_Disc-removalble_Without_cartridge-locking-pin.jpg/540px-DVD-RAM_FUJIFILM_Disc-removalble_Without_cartridge-locking-pin.jpg

Thats not so different from the UMDs, and those are only "popular" 'cause its the only legal way to play PSP games.

I believe the era of disc is going to end soon, with most consoles moving to internal HDD storage, and then SSDs.

[alphagamer]

i liked the minidisc, too!

[KIT786]

If you include handhelds then proberly its a YES from me

[Shadowlayer]

i liked the minidisc, too!

Yeah those were cool, weird that sony didnt consider them for that late 90s proto-PSP (it used memory sticks instead) since back then it would have really helped to revitalize the medium, since the ipod was nowhere to be found.

[jp.]

IF you mean holographic, yes.

:thumbsup:


Holographic storage needs to happen like, now.

[3do]

Ignoring everything about it costing to much and not getting enough storage ...etc and just concentrating on the idea of a cartridge console then YES i'd love a cartridge console and would definatley buy one.


It would cost too much and maybe not offer any advantage over dvd or optical disc technology which is a shame.

[Taucias]

Yeah those were cool, weird that sony didnt consider them for that late 90s proto-PSP (it used memory sticks instead) since back then it would have really helped to revitalize the medium, since the ipod was nowhere to be found.


This, coming from the guy that slated UMD.

[Shadowlayer]

This, coming from the guy that slated UMD.

You cant compare a late 90s (98-99) PSP using MD and one released between six and seven years later with the UMD.

Back in the late 90s a 32MB CF card would cost you a fortune, while even the lowest type of MD was 140MB and went for little more than a CDR. Back then it would have been the best option, but nowadays with cheap flash memory and HDDs, the only reason why Sony went with yet another useless form of media has more to do with the old media arm of the company than with actual convenience.

Lets not forget the PSP was to become the "walkman of the 21th century" and the UMDs were supposed to be the next big thing after the DVD.

None of that happened...

[Barc0de]

well a golden line would be to have some sort of optional RAM cartridge where a percentage of the disk would be dumped into memory, much like GD-ROM arcade-based systems. needless to say though that this sort of performance does come at a price.

[SuperGrafx]

I would definitely.
Carts are my favorite form of gaming media.

[thamasha69]

If there was some game exclusive to the system that I just had to have,....then yes I would buy a cartridge based system.

[alphagamer]

the thing that bugs me about UMDs is that they have no dust shutter, just an open hole. and of course compared to flash media they are slooow.

[Christer-swe]

Absolutely. Especially if it's reasonably priced so I can get one for my nephews.

I'm looking to buy maybe a NEX or a Tectoy SMS/MD, does that count? :shrug:

[karsten]

what about HD based with dowloads from the net?

i would be interested if the loading is realy fast.

[andoba]

Definitively NO. I love cartridges, but optical technology is always more advanced than carts. When carts we're 128 Mb and CD's 600 MB, now carts could be 16 GB and Blu Rays 50 GB. Not worth it.

And I alredy had enough paying 14999 pesetas for each fucking N64 game (140$).

[Christer-swe]

Well, in theory, cartridges can be made up to 1 TB, seeing as it's pretty much a HDD.

[Shadowlayer]

Thats what I said, but then cartridges would be more like hot-swap HDDs, and with tons of games inside.

Kinda like those cheap HK Nes knockoffs.

[GodofHardcore]

I don't think Digital distribution is the wave of the future. For the simple fact retailers won't let that happen.

Now cart based console......does the DS count as a console?

[alphagamer]

yeah, the ds counts as a portable console i think. i was more referring to stationary consoles though.
and the ds is more like 2004 technology and not 2008+

[Shakey_Jake33]

The reliability of carts isn't really what we used to think back in the day. This is evident today - it's not uncommon to find carts that don't work anymore, or are corrupted in some way. They wear out, batteries die, connectors become less reliable. Of course I love them in an rose-tinted-specs way, but they are outdated technology. Do remember that modern-day Flash technology is very different, and not really a valid comparison... I would probably prefer games came on Flash cards over optical media for durability reasons!

Retailers will resist digital distribution because it threatens their business model. We all know the advantages and disadvantages of it so I won't get into that, but if a console was to be released purely to appeal to the niche retro gamer or whatever, digitial distribution would be the only viable, cost effective distribution format, especially since any such format would find it hard to keep a large presence at retail.

[Calpis]

Cartridges today (DS game paks etc) are nothing like cartridges of yore, in fact they're infinitely closer to optical media and often have around the same throughput despite the extravagant cost of solid state memory and built-in interface controllers; because of this it'd be stupid for home consoles to go "cartridge" again.

[CrAzY]

Tough question. Lets just say, I wouldnt mind a cartridge based system existing right now, and I would almost definately purchase it, but it is in no means something I have been dying to have...

Sad to admit it, but its definately outdated technology. Bring on the Discs!:crying:

[MottZilla]

The reliability of carts isn't really what we used to think back in the day. This is evident today - it's not uncommon to find carts that don't work anymore, or are corrupted in some way. They wear out, batteries die, connectors become less reliable.
Why do people keep saying this bullshit? If the cartridge doesn't work it's probably because it's NEVER BEEN CLEANED. You have to clean these things you know? Just like you wipe or blow dust off a disc. Battery is dead? Gee maybe you should replace it then? Cartridges don't wear out, people are just stupid. Cartridges stop working when someone decides to damage them through shock or crushing. You can start worrying about cartridges actually wearing out when you need to desolder the maskrom chip and get a new PCB board printed for it.

Forinstance I went to play Sonic on my Genesis a couple days ago, the game didn't start. I opened the game up, cleaned it, put it back together and back in the system, no problem. I have a Chrono Trigger SNES cartridge, the battery is dead. I could fix that if I went to the store and bought a new battery for it.

If you made a new system using cartridges, containing durable HDDs might be a good idea if you could make it cheap enough. But that is doubtful. I think you'd have to make the cartridge contain some kind of optical memory. Maybe you could have some kind of block containing a large amount of data that would be read by a laser within the system or something. But people don't like change, that's why I think discs are here to stay for a long time yet.

[Warakia]

I guess people's problem with the reliability of cartridges comes from the fact that you NEED to clean them! I have never had to clean a disk, apart from when I have got it off someone who treated it badly. When 2 carts start playing up in one week, I cannot help but think fondly of CD based games.

As an aside do CDs ever stop working through any other reason than dirt or marks on the disk? I heard a complicated story about layers seperating on DVDs on this forum a while ago...

[MottZilla]

CDs are vulnerable to scratches. If a scratch is deep enough, you're screwwed. Or if the scratch is in a bad direction or shape that could do it. And it is possible for your Disc to split apart as they are basically layers glued together. But Disc problems for pressed discs are usually scratches from wear and tear as well as poor user care. This isn't a big deal if you buy everything new, but if you buy used Disc games it can be a serious problem. You can have your disc polished or something to try to make it readable again but only so many times.

If you take proper caer of your Discs they should last a long long time. But the same is true of if you clean your cartridges. They don't get that dirty that fast. If you clean them only when they stop working, you're still talking like once every 3 years or something. And that's just a random guess.

[andoba]

I had some disks which we're eaten by fungus. Anyway, carts we're so fucking expensive and even if I like them, I wouldn't buy more than one game per year.

And I doubt that digital distribution will success any soon, tell me how can I download a 50 GB PS3 game with my "awesome" theorical 6 Mb connection.

[MottZilla]

And did you hear about Comcast putting a download cap on their service to "combat piracy"? Claiming no non-pirate needs more than X amount of GB download per month. It's retarded.

[Shakey_Jake33]

Why do people keep saying this bullshit? If the cartridge doesn't work it's probably because it's NEVER BEEN CLEANED. You have to clean these things you know? Just like you wipe or blow dust off a disc. Battery is dead? Gee maybe you should replace it then? Cartridges don't wear out, people are just stupid. Cartridges stop working when someone decides to damage them through shock or crushing. You can start worrying about cartridges actually wearing out when you need to desolder the maskrom chip and get a new PCB board printed for it.

Forinstance I went to play Sonic on my Genesis a couple days ago, the game didn't start. I opened the game up, cleaned it, put it back together and back in the system, no problem. I have a Chrono Trigger SNES cartridge, the battery is dead. I could fix that if I went to the store and bought a new battery for it.

If you made a new system using cartridges, containing durable HDDs might be a good idea if you could make it cheap enough. But that is doubtful. I think you'd have to make the cartridge contain some kind of optical memory. Maybe you could have some kind of block containing a large amount of data that would be read by a laser within the system or something. But people don't like change, that's why I think discs are here to stay for a long time yet.Point taken, though I hardly think it called for such a rude tone.

Download caps are certainly going to hold back digital distribution however. Virgin Media, for example, have a 4GB cap, which could be a problem if you use Steam or similar to download games.

[MottZilla]

I wasn't directing anything negative against you, but the perception so many people have about cartridges not working. Companies like Nintendo didn't sell a cleaning kit just as a way to get more money, it actually served a purpose. It's sad that instead of cleaning their games most people resorted to their so called "tricks" to get a game working.

[alphagamer]

hey, because of uncleaned cartridges i managed to get a few bargains on some n64 games :-)

[liquitt]

i definetly would, imagine carts with SSDs in it :) 100GB+ Cartridges

[Shadowlayer]

I don't think Digital distribution is the wave of the future. For the simple fact retailers won't let that happen.

Music retailers were much more powerful than game retailers, yet they were defeated by iTunes, against all odds.

The moment console makers get serious about DoD retailers wont be able to do shit about it, believe me.


and the ds is more like 2004 technology and not 2008+

More like revamped 2001 tech, amirite?

About comcast and the other ISPs, rumor says their real problem are people renting 12GB HD movies over IP, rather than pirates.

Problem is you cant blame legitimate users;-)

[Alchy]

Music retailers were much more powerful than game retailers, yet they were defeated by iTunes, against all odds.
Yeah, because nobody buys CDs from shops any more, right? "Defeated"? I see your ridiculously hyperbolic nature hasn't changed...

[Shakey_Jake33]

It's true that digital distribution of music has taken off in a big way though, whether retailers like it or not. We've heard the nay-saying scenarios of game retailers threatening to boycott a specific console if they turn their back on retail, but I wonder if they have that much power.

Conspiracy theorists will say that full games are not available on XBL for , this reason, and I think there's truth there. But if the next generation of consoles provides all games over digital distribution, rendering retailers redundant for anything other than providing the hardware, how would they react?

[Alchy]

I think by this stage everyone is aware that digital distribution is only going to grow, that iTunes is a major player in music sales, and that full retail games will likely be available on all platforms come the next generation of hardware (they already are on PS3, if I'm not mistaken). Issues of preference for physical items aside, it's a better scenario for all concerned - the brick and mortar middlemen being cut out are essentially leeches. However, physical distribution isn't going to die out overnight, and the idea that iTunes has "defeated" an entire industry is prima facie absurd.

[Jamtex]

I remember how slow and painful it was to download the update for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, it effectively took several days, even more painful when it timed out and I had to manually restart the bastard to get it to continue downlaoding. Even downloading Gran Turismo HD took over a day. GT5P I have as a disc but if I need to redownload the update then arrrgh! GTHD I have as an install disc. :)

With more and more internet providers having "fair use" policies and games getting bigger I can't see proper distribution of full games being a reality any time soon.

[Alchy]

Uh...
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/08/download-burnou.html
How is that not proper distribution? Available != mandatory, it's there for people with ISP's that don't suck.

[PhreQuencYViii]

And did you hear about Comcast putting a download cap on their service to "combat piracy"? Claiming no non-pirate needs more than X amount of GB download per month. It's retarded.

Are you serious? When does that happen? I hope Florida has a different ISP...

[Taemos]

If they somehow beat the piracy issue (probably wouldn't happen), I would definitely buy a cartridge-based system. Maybe if they limit the size to 1GB the developers would be forced to make a decent game instead of concentrating on physics effects and pixel shaders.

I'm not bitter.

[alphagamer]

developers managed to get resident evil 2 on a 512mbit cartridge on the n64, compared to the 2 cd's it uses on the psx.

with all cutscenes and everything.
and the resolution is even higher on the n64.

with tricks and tweaks its possible to get a decent game on little space.

[Alchy]

Just think what they could've created if, instead of wasting time on developing exotic compression routines, the hardware had just enabled them to get on with making games.

[Shadowlayer]

Uh...
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/08/download-burnou.html

You smear my point and then bring a blog entry from TIRED? are you serious? those guys havent been on the money since 1998!:rolleyes:

And I guess the millions of ipods and iphones sold say shit about digital distribution, and the RIAA going nuts about it has no relation with the CD industry going down...

Just STFU and accept the facts: retail chains are the bottleneck in this industry, they charge too much for space and limit with censorship what you can actually show in the game case. I wont shed a tear if the likes of gamestop disappears from the face of the earth.

[Alchy]

You smear my point and then bring a blog entry from TIRED? are you serious? those guys havent been on the money since 1998!:rolleyes:So you think that Burnout Paradise isn't available on PSN? How fucking peculiar, since I played it last night on a mate's PS3. I guess you're right, though, I must have been imagining things.

I think you need to go back and re-read my posts and look at who I was responding to, because it wasn't you. I would've thought not making yourself look like an idiot was fairly high on your priority list, but the evidence against that wasn't ever too hard to find.


And I guess the millions of ipods and iphones sold say shit about digital distribution, and the RIAA going nuts about it has no relation with the CD industry going down...Going down does not mean dead. You always did make me repeat myself, you never spent the time to actually read or comprehend posts, and it's no less irritating now than it ever was. So, because you're too lazy, I'll copy and paste my last post, and this time I'd really appreciate it if you actually read what I write: "I think by this stage everyone is aware that digital distribution is only going to grow, that iTunes is a major player in music sales". Clearly, I think digital distribution has no future. Right.


Just STFU and accept the facts: retail chains are the bottleneck in this industry, they charge too much for space and limit with censorship what you can actually show in the game case. I wont shed a tear if the likes of gamestop disappears from the face of the earth.Neither will I, and had you been paying attention you'd know as much (again, for the benefit of your poor reading and comprehension skills: "Issues of preference for physical items aside, it's a better scenario for all concerned - the brick and mortar middlemen being cut out are essentially leeches"). The fact remains that physical stores still exist. I guess that doesn't fit into your pathetically obvious straw man argument, though.

Pitiful, even by your standards.

[Shadowlayer]

What you live in imaginationland? where everything appears and dissapears in a second? retailers wont be gone in a sec, when have you seen a business closing without giving a fight? its called competition, einstein! is the basis of the capitalist system.

Retailers in the music industry have been going down for years, tower records which was huge is GONE, and the rest are having problems too. And not only music, video too: blockbuster is losing ground everyday to netflix, a company that while not DoD per se follows the similar principle of on-demand distribution: instead of having a store they mail you the DVD. Netflix is already designing a set-top-box for DoD BTW.

Now even if the nextgen is all DoD, retailers will still be there selling current-gen consoles (X360, PS3, Wii) and games, plus used games from previous generations. It wont be until the end of the nextgen that said retailers will seriously begin to shrink and die.

[Alchy]

What you live in imaginationland? where everything appears and dissapears in a second?You're the one who said that iTunes had "defeated" traditional retailers. I can only sit back and watch you shoot down your own arguments.


It wont be until the end of the nextgen that said retailers will seriously begin to shrink and die.I'd like to point you to my first post in this thread, in which I said "physical distribution isn't going to die out overnight". Are you done saying the things I've already said? Because I'm kind of done repeating myself.

[PhreQuencYViii]

You smear my point and then bring a blog entry from TIRED?

On this, the day of my daughters wedding??

[Shadowlayer]

You're the one who said that iTunes had "defeated" traditional retailers.

They're dying already, and unless those cokeheads at LA can come up with a brillant idea to defeat itunes AND keep the highly profitable (for them) CD running for years to come, I'll say buying a tombstone for the traditional music biz is the next thing on the list...



On this, the day of my daughters wedding??

:lol:

[Barc0de]

I m surprised you claim to do business studies yet completely forget the notion of "Expanding the pie" before cutting it to pieces. It can be win-win depending on the balance they strike.

Most things in life aren't "I win, you lose", that's just in games.

[Alchy]

They're dying alreadyI'd say the CD has a lot of life left in it yet, but essentially we're arguing along the same lines (you're being a touch dramatic, perhaps, but then that's kind of your calling card). Maybe next time we argue you'll at least offer a distinct opinion? It'd make the process that much more interesting.


I m surprised you claim to do business studies yet completely forget the notion of "Expanding the pie" before cutting it to pieces. It can be win-win depending on the balance they strike.When you have his kind of business acumen, who needs moderation? It's all black and white, right? Certainly makes it easier to think about.

[PhreQuencYViii]

CD's are going to stay as long as I'm around.

[Drew]

There is no reason for CD's to be phased out anytime soon, taking cost of production into account. Maybe not in the video gaming industry, but there are many industries that currently and will continue relying on CDs as a cheap and easy-to-produce medium.