I hope this hasn't been posted yet, and I am sorry if it has. If it's been posted already, I will readily delete this thread. I just read a very interesting article about how the memory card slot on the NX could create a lot of good situations for Nintendo, with nearly zero problems.

http://gamingbolt.com/nintendo-nx-why-not-having-a-optical-drive-could-potentially-work-in-the-big-ns-favor

The article seems very realistic to me, and also makes a lot of sense. The size of the slot from the pictures is almost identical to the size that a handheld cart would be. So theoretically, you could take that game right out of your home system, and pop it in your portable, and just keep playing. With SD card style carts, it would create this possibility, because save data could be partitioned right on the cart. There are also a lot of other benefits that I did not realize and maybe a lot of us did not realize within this article. It's looking more and more like Nintendo might be a leader again, and not a follower. I can't wait to see some real details about these systems, (I am convinced it is two systems being released in congruence with one another, with maybe even a dock built into the main system for handheld charging) the speculation is driving me crazy it seems so good!

The cart thing has already been proven false by numerous people. It's just an SD card slot. The system is all digital. People will just deal with it when it comes out.

It's been posted and speculated on a million times already on this board.

And the PSVita/Vita TV already basically does this so it's not really a new idea.

If you want to be technical about it, the portable Turbo Express played the exact same games (Hu Cards format) as the Turbo Grafx 16 (PC Engine in Japan) 25 years ago.

It wont be all digital.Nintendo is an innovative company, but that would be just a dumb move.It will fracture its fan base, and lose more support.We dont know the whole story, we are missing something that nintendo is not sharing.

No, we aren't. Nintendo is looking at the modern era, where everything but consoles has a massively successful all digital product, and are following the obvious improvements that would bring. We do know the full story. Nintendo has wanted to go digital since the launch of the Wii U with the DDP. This is their hard turn in that direction.

I don't see it to be honest. Sure they will offer the digital only option, but Nintendo is extremely close with their retail partners, especially in Japan. Retail in Japan is a different beast. Iwata was really fixated on retail sales data for example from Japan. It's a big part of the gaming culture there and for better or worse Nintendo will always consider Japan's needs/tastes first and foremost. 

There's also things like comments by Mr. Miyamoto that he likes physical copies of games and likes the idea of kids being able to hold/touch the game, and since he's running the show now (effectively) I don't see Nintendo ditching the physical option any time soon. 

What I could see happening is if some devs really prefer digital only, is they can go digital only, or just offer a bare bones retail version (8GB card with the first 2-3 hours of the game on the card, the rest downloads when you get home). 

Japan's primary gaming tastes are of mobile, an all digital platform. Digital is a bigger part of gaming culture there now than physical. Japan will be fine.

And so will the U.S. And Europe.

I've said numerous times, there are ways to maintain retail presence while being all digital, and that way is NFC download code cards.

Not that I, at all, buy that Nintendo will always consider Japan before the west. But that's for another discussion.

I know it has been speculated on, but I had not seen this particular speculation anywhere. I did not see anyone posting about the fact that the move to carts could bring a lot benefits to the company, or the fact that you could possibly just remove the cart from one system and plug it into your handheld. And no, they don't already do this, you can't take a game out of your Playstation and put it into your Vita, you have to buy the digital version and download it to both systems, also don't you have to be hooked onto the same wifi connection to play? Plus remote play does not work with every single game, so it is a new concept and idea to fuse the two systems together via a single game cartridge. If the system turns out to be all digital, I wouldn't be surprised or disappointed, but this again seems like a great idea from Nintendo if it is indeed true.

Retail is still a big part of Japanese culture, lining up at the Akihibira district to get a new games, etc. etc. It's not like the US. 

I was in Japan earlier this year, it's really eye opening actually. Arcades are still a huuuuuuge deal there, they're everywhere. 

Even porn shops (lol), full *floors* of physical DVDs still, I was kind of like "do they know you can get porn on the internet now?". And this is not like one speciality store of something, this is a staple of their retail enviornment. 

Beyond that I really doubt on the 3DS/Wii U (the relevant Nintendo platforms) that digital downloads of games are maybe 10-15% at best.

Also loathe it or not, Miyamoto has said he still considers games to be like toys, and he likes that they have a physical connection to people:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-13-miyamoto-nintendos-game-ownership-policy-should-operate-like-a-toy-company

"What's really important is viewing Nintendo almost like a toy company where we're making these things for people to play with," he said. "As a consumer you want to be able to keep those things for a long time and have those things from your youth that you can go back to and experience again.

Like honestly I don't care personally how Nintendo distributes their games, but just knowing how Nintendo operates, I don't see them all of all companies taking the lead on this issue. Maybe if digital consumption on Wii U/3DS was over 50%, but it's not even close to that. 

Okay, first of all, these patents may not even be seen in the final console revisions of the NX. Who even said the NX would comprise of this? Nintendo, and numerous other companies always file patents for hardware and sometimes those patents evolve into something else or they're never even seen again. Let's wait and see if the final console will use Game Cards or not. Maybe Nintendo's games will run on SDs. You can install 3DS games on SD cards, so I wonder if Nintendo will be utilizing this in some kind of way. I just don't wanna talk about the card slot thing that much anymore. I want it to be true, but we'll just have to wait for NINTENDO'S word on the system, not a poisonous frog:D