Do you think game cartridges will make a comeback in video game consoles?

[shams]

I have long argued that carts should come back, and I would love to see the Wii II go back to using carts completely (i.e. drop the disc drive). Some of the reasons include:

 - form factor: The Wii without a drive would be 2-3x smaller.

 - power: It would be lighter, consume a lot less power, need a smaller fan and be quieter.

 - price: the manufacturing price would be slashed. Could be talking half the current manufacturing price.

 - loading times: seek, read and loading times would be smashed. Games could include their own save memory.

 - RAM: The majority of RAM on consoles these days is used as a 'cache' for loaded meshes, sounds, textures and general data. Most of this data is "read-only" - its just cached. In theory, any data on your cart effectively increases your total available system RAM. Fort instance - say the Wii II has 256MB of RAM. But stick a 4GB cart in it - and its effectively got 4.25GB of RAM (4GB R/O, 256 R/W). This would blow the next-gen PS3/360 out of the water.

 - reliability: Carts are much more resistant to damage than discs, and are bend/scratch proof. In fact, I have *never* had any cart ever fail on me (including NES, DS, N64, ...).

Now, the one obvious drawback - effective memory size. The people here quoting USB stick sizes are very, very wrong. Games do NOT need volatile/Flash RAM - the data is READ ONLY. R/O memory is much, much cheaper, faster, easier to produce and reliable than Flash/USB memory.

DS cart tech is effectively 6-7 years old. Nintendo *could* provide 4-8GB carts now - and possibly ones even bigger. The new technology carts being developed are closer to 1TB. Point is, as technology improves - cart sizes would increase, and become cheaper as the generation progresses.

The other, much more real reason they wouldn't drop the drive - backwards compat with Wii titles. It would be more likely that the Wii II has both a drive & cart slot - and the next console goes cart only.

...

DVD/BluRay might cost 10c-$1 each to press - carts could be $0.20-$3.00. When you compare this to the cost of full games, its pretty much a tiny cost.

Look at the DS vrs PSP - carts are a huge part of why the DS is ahead.

Both Sony & MS have experience and vested interest in disc drives - Nintendo has vested interest with carts. Bringing back carts is not even close to as crazy as many of you are making out...