Gaming Why don't console games go back to cartridges?

[cracker]

The thing is, for the Xbox One and PS4 games get installed to the hard drive BECAUSE disk-based media isn't fast enough for playback anymore. That necessitates the need for a larger hard drive and storage management, something Nintendo would rather avoid. Cartridges are a better solution for Nintendo. Whether or not other systems follow suit remains to be seen. Sony and Microsoft have always used disk-based consoles (and Sony even had a disk-based handheld) so they have no experience with cartridges. It's up to them to see if they will be a better idea - if they ever come out with anything after the PS Neo and Scorpio.

Sony did/does with the Vita. Of course most PS4 games are too big to make cartridges feasible as the sole hard copy storage method for reasonable manufacturing costs.

The Switch will probably need a lot of expanded storage to download addon content for the games to keep up with the graphic quality of the other consoles, but since many games are Nintendo platform specific they usually don't have to compete in areas like FPS where players admire the graphics almost as much as the total package.

 

[Futurdreamz]

We don't need cartridges or discs at this point, all physical storage media is obsolete in the age of fiber. Whether gamers like it or not, the industry will eventually go digital - someone just needs to make the first brave step. As much as I like physical copies, I can see a world in which only "special editions" will be found on store shelves, and all they'll have in the box will be a download code.

This is the era of Comcast sorry. Otherwise we would all be playing PS Now

 

[Foxi4]

This is the era of Comcast sorry. Otherwise we would all be playing PS Now

The U.S. is not the bellybutton of the world, we don't have those issues in Europe, or globally for that matter. As for PSNow, it's a good service for a small audience, but it's not sufficient for mainstream use - those supercomputers aren't cheap and there are hundreds of millions of players out there. Standard digital distribution is a better model, it's far cheaper to deploy.

 

[mashers]

all physical storage media is obsolete in the age of fiber.

I disagree. First, not everybody has access to fibre broadband. Second, you still need physical storage media as there are always some local data needed. Third, a fibre connection won't help much for a portable console.

 

[Futurdreamz]

The U.S. is not the bellybutton of the world, we don't have those issues in Europe, or globally for that matter. As for PSNow, it's a good service for a small audience, but it's not sufficient for mainstream use - those supercomputers aren't cheap and there are hundreds of millions of players out there. Standard digital distribution is a better model, it's far cheaper to deploy.

The usa is one of the largest going markets, and it is difficult to avoid. And you are still stuck with pockets in each country of restricted internet access. I myself live on an acreage where my only choice for internet is dialup or capped cellular.

 

[kublai]

You probably couldn't afford the game with the amount of RAM required for games these days on PS4/Xboxone.

 

[Chary]

We don't need cartridges or discs at this point, all physical storage media is obsolete in the age of fiber. Whether gamers like it or not, the industry will eventually go digital - someone just needs to make the first brave step. As much as I like physical copies, I can see a world in which only "special editions" will be found on store shelves, and all they'll have in the box will be a download code.

It's inevitable, sadly. But hopefully by the time that "eventually" happens, American ISPs can stop bumbling about, regressing and restricting their usage plans. No way can digital only libraries flourish when consumers have to deal with 1TB, or even horrifyingly, 300GB monthly caps.

 

[Jayro]

Games don't run off of optical media. PS4 and XBOne games are stored on them. You install them to your HDD, where they are then played from, updated to, etc. Discs are considerably cheaper than flash memory, and these manufacturers would have to either make games on flash media large enough to accommodate all of these updates, or you'd still be running part of the game off of the HDD anyway. So it really wouldn't change things very much.

Wii U games still stream from the optical media directly to memory, just like the PS1, PS2, some PS3, Xbox, some XB360, Wii, and GameCube all did.

 

[Futurdreamz]

Wii U games still stream from the optical media directly to memory, just like the PS1, PS2, some PS3, Xbox, some XB360, Wii, and GameCube all did.

Wii U is the last console to do so. Anything more powerful runs into the transfer speed limit

 

[WiiUBricker]

Too be fair, games that use up large amounts of Gigabytes don't use good compression, right? I reckon it's easier to work with uncompressed files, but if devs are forced to use compression, then they will use it.

 

[vincentx77]

Wii U games still stream from the optical media directly to memory, just like the PS1, PS2, some PS3, Xbox, some XB360, Wii, and GameCube all did.

Yes, I am aware, but think of it this way. The Wii U effectively has 1GB of RAM (yes, I know it has 2, but only one for games). That is why games can still get away with being streamed from the disc just like they could on the PS3 and 360. The Wii U has almost the exact same restraints, graphics wise and memory wise, as the those two consoles. The Wii U's optical disc should be able to fill the Wii U's usable RAM in about 41 seconds, give or take (not accounting for seek). It would take a little over 5 and a half minutes to do the same with the PS4/XBOne. People are bitching about the minute long load times that on games like Just Cause 3. Optical Media would triple that at least, and that's not accounting for seek time.

Too be fair, games that use up large amounts of Gigabytes don't use good compression, right? I reckon it's easier to work with uncompressed files, but if devs are forced to use compression, then they will use it.

Most massive games have huge video files. The Switch could 'technically' get away with using lower quality FMV for a lot of games and get away with a much smaller cart. I think this may happen should devs choose to support it initially. But if you're suggesting devs be forced to use fancier compression algorithms that must decompress at runtime, bear in mind that this will take cpu cycles, which, on a mobile ARM processor, is probably not viable. Obviously, they can further compress textures and audio, but doing that reduces quality. This will be noticeable when you put it on a large TV. Audio is what they'll be able to get away with the most. Games will just sound better (especially with good headphones) on the PS4 and XBOne.

 

[Foxi4]

It's inevitable, sadly. But hopefully by the time that "eventually" happens, American ISPs can stop bumbling about, regressing and restricting their usage plans. No way can digital only libraries flourish when consumers have to deal with 1TB, or even horrifyingly, 300GB monthly caps.

Forget about it - the U.S. media providers are one big chain of corruption and collusion. If I recall correctly, Time Warner and AT&T are preparing a quiet, under-the-radar merger to start a monopoly, so prepare for even worse service.

I disagree. First, not everybody has access to fibre broadband. Second, you still need physical storage media as there are always some local data needed. Third, a fibre connection won't help much for a portable console.

The usa is one of the largest going markets, and it is difficult to avoid. And you are still stuck with pockets in each country of restricted internet access. I myself live on an acreage where my only choice for internet is dialup or capped cellular.

Well duh you need local storage, my point is that it will be integrated into the console and quite possibly not swappable, as it is the case with the Xbox since Microsoft entered the console business (drives are console-locked on the OG, 360 and One and require a hack to copy drive keys). The cost of pressing discs or burning cartridges pales in comparison to distribution costs, it's simply more logistically viable to go all -digital. If you think that's not coming, look at what's happening in every other media sector. Services like Netflix or iTunes are booming while Blockbuster went bust, pun intended. Physical distribution is going to die, get comfortable with that thought.

 

[driverdis]

Forget about it - the U.S. media providers are one big chain of corruption and collusion. If I recall correctly, Time Warner and AT&T are preparing a quiet, under-the-radar merger to start a monopoly, so prepare for even worse service.

Yep, it was already bad enough when they got DirecTV and now AT&T will now get to expand their poor service, world famous terrible customer support, and outrageous prices to the already bad Time Warner policies. the Cellular market is just as bad also.

 

[KiiWii]

developers were forced to finish their games before they sold them.

I imagine some gun-to-the-head style pant pissing "we have no choice but to complete the game before it is released".... That tickles me seeing how shonky today's games are with their 5gb day one patches to make them bloody playable.....

 

[driverdis]

The Wii used discs and didn't have a hard disk, so developers were forced to finish their games before they sold them. The same thing could happen with a read only cartridge.

The PS Vita cards had writable portions for data storage (I do not think anyone ever used it for game updates however). It would make sense to have a portion of the Switch game card set aside for updates that can be downloaded to them.

 

[KiiWii]

What if the switch requires internet connection 100% of the time and the carts contained a super small 4mb memory that simply stored the dl code for the game, which is tied to the console somehow, binding derived from the console ID it was plugged into...... Fucking over second hand market and making it super cheap to produce....

Game cart without game even on it..... Whoa!

 

[driverdis]

What if the switch requires internet connection 100% of the time and the carts contained a super small 4mb memory that simply stored the dl code for the game, which is tied to the console somehow, binding derived from the console ID it was plugged into...... Fucking over second hand market and making it super cheap to produce....

Game cart without game even on it..... Whoa!

this would be 2 gaming network generations outside of what Nintendo can do
Nintendo with the Wii U finally is on par with Xbox Live (Original Xbox) for multiplayer but with a social network tacked on.
I do not see Nintendo having the infrastructure to do this even if they wanted to, they entered the digital game market with the 3DS and Wii U whereas Sony and Microsoft have been able to polish theirs since 2005/2006 and have a lot of catching up to do.

 

[KiiWii]

this would be 2 gaming network generations outside of what Nintendo can do
Nintendo with the Wii U finally is on par with Xbox Live (Original Xbox) for multiplayer but with a social network tacked on.
I do not see Nintendo having the infrastructure to do this even if they wanted to, they entered the digital game market with the 3DS and Wii U whereas Sony and Microsoft have been able to polish theirs since 2005/2006 and have a lot of catching up to do.

They have NUS for content.

They have a console for encryption/decryption and loading.

I never said they would improve their ass backwards approach to online multiplayer interactivity

 

[Jayro]

I think one of the most impressive feats in gaming history, has to be Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64. They squeezed all the code, graphics, sounds, FMVs; An entire 650 MB disc-worth of data into a single 64MB cartridge. And even as compressed as it all was, there were no load-times beyond going through the usual doors to load the next area. The FMVs were atrocious to look at, but still impressive to watch 5 min opening and closing cutscenes, as well as in-game cutscenes in such a small amount of space. The work that went into making the N64 version I feel is vastly under appreciated.

 

[KiiWii]

I think one of the most impressive feats in gaming history, has to be Resident Evil 2 on the Nintendo 64. They squeezed all the code, graphics, sounds, FMVs; An entire 650 MB disc-worth of data into a single 64MB cartridge. And even as compressed as it all was, there were no load-times beyond going through the usual doors to load the next area. The FMVs were atrocious to look at, but still impressive to watch 5 min opening and closing cutscenes, as well as in-game cutscenes in such a small amount of space. The work that went into making the N64 version I feel is vastly under appreciated.

Apparently 757mb...