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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Game Disks or Game Cartridges on Home Consoles

 

Disks or Cartridges?

Disks 57 27.40%
 
Cartridges 121 58.17%
 
Why not Both? 21 10.10%
 
See Results 9 4.33%
 
Total:208
Platina on 23 September 2016

It makes sense to have cartridges for handheld devices, as they can load faster and are generally more durable. Being able to save on the cartridge directly is good for mobility. But what about home consoles?

Is it better for home consoles to have disks or cartridges?

Disks can (generally) hold more information and are cheaper to produce. Disks are also improving, so which do you prefer?



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archer9234 on 23 September 2016

Cards. If they can eliminate the production costs. They're smaller. And can be held anyway you want. Don't need a complicated disc loading area, in the system anymore. Space can be saved. I'd rather have 3DS size game case. Than a DVD or BD size case.



Slimebeast on 23 September 2016

I love cartridges. It really feels like a video game because of the legacy.



Vini256 on 23 September 2016

Cartridges. Way more durable and they just feel right. That clicking sound when you put one into the console is so satisfying =P

Also, they're pretty practical (The handheld ones at least), because you can just buy one of these cases and keep all of them in one place:



Soundwave on 23 September 2016

I really honestly don't care.

The game could come on a USB drive, cartridge, disc, vinyl record, paperback novel, hamburger, whatever. As long as the game is good and can be sold for a reasonable cost.

That said I do wish with the N64 they had used carts + CDs (like the Saturn did). It would've dramatically changed the outcome of the system and given it far more games than it got.



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Zkuq on 23 September 2016

I don't have much experience with cartridges, but I love the concept. That's mainly because they're much more comforable to handle because they're not so fragile. I'm not sure which are cheaper to manufacture, but I'd still pick the cheaper one unless the difference is neglible. Of course speed is also a factor, but I think I'll leave that outside of this discussion (for now at least).



SvennoJ on 23 September 2016

Crystal quartz please

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/02/data-storage-crystal-quartz-will-change-everything.html
http://www.gizmosnack.com/news/science/discovery-of-superman-memory-crystal-with-360-tb-storage-capacity/

the memory crystal with an inch diameter can store up to 360TB of data and can endure temperature of up to 1000 degrees Celsius. It can last for 13.8 billion years in a room that has a 190-degree Celsius temperature

Cartridges are too expensive, disks slow and cumbersome. It will probably still be a long time before these can be read fast or produced for little money. Can't exactly mass produce them in a press like discs.



archer9234 on 23 September 2016
SvennoJ said:

Crystal quartz please

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/02/data-storage-crystal-quartz-will-change-everything.html
http://www.gizmosnack.com/news/science/discovery-of-superman-memory-crystal-with-360-tb-storage-capacity/

the memory crystal with an inch diameter can store up to 360TB of data and can endure temperature of up to 1000 degrees Celsius. It can last for 13.8 billion years in a room that has a 190-degree Celsius temperature

Cartridges are too expensive, disks slow and cumbersome. It will probably still be a long time before these can be read fast or produced for little money. Can't exactly mass produce them in a press like discs.

Come back when a disc could be made for $1.50, lol.



se7en7thre3 on 23 September 2016

Whatever Nintendo deems enough as storage for their consoles and its costs (last gen, 32 gb for Wii U), I'd prefer they reinvest in cartridges, possibly up to 64gb, and leave the external storage optional. Just keep the bare minimum for console updates (



Zkuq on 23 September 2016
RolStoppable said:
Zkuq said:

I don't have much experience with cartridges, but I love the concept. That's mainly because they're much more comforable to handle because they're not so fragile. I'm not sure which are cheaper to manufacture, but I'd still pick the cheaper one unless the difference is neglible. Of course speed is also a factor, but I think I'll leave that outside of this discussion (for now at least).

Discs will still be cheaper to produce for the foreseeable future, but cartridges have come a long way since the mid-'90s. SD cards are used in so many devices that the variants that systems like the 3DS and PSV use are cheap to massproduce. Of course, in 2011 when these systems launched, discs still far outpaced these cards in terms of storage capacity (cards could theoretically hold as much as 8GB while the PS4 uses dual-layered Blu-rays at 50GB a piece). Nowadays game development costs are a much bigger factor than the choice of storage medium when it comes to the retail price of video games; 3DS and Vita games cost $40 as opposed to $60 for home console games.

The Nintendo NX concept lends itself to cartridges/cards and by 2017 storage capacities of up to 64GB are feasible, although 8, 16 and 32GB cards would be a lot more common. For one, the smaller sizes are cheaper to produce, and two, most games would fit just fine on them. NX games would not be more expensive for the consumer than the games on other consoles, so that would fall into the category of negligible difference.

Hey, thanks for the information! I already though discs were cheaper, but I wasn't really up-to-date with my information, so I wasn't sure. Sounds like cartridges are a real option then.