Why are we still using discs instead of cartridges?

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DM235 said:
A PS4 Bluray drive cost Sony $28 back in 2013. It's probably cheaper now. It is very low power, so it won't affect the rest of the system (power supply, cooling, etc). Since Sony and Microsoft both have a vested interest in Bluray, it makes sense for them to include a drive in their consoles.

Blurays cost less than $2 (probably closer to $1). A 64 GB flash cart costs about $3 (based on what I could find through Google). As a publisher, I would much rather have the extra $1 to $2 for every copy that I sell by using optical media.

Since all games install to the local HDD now anyway, there isn't a big difference between load times (and most games hide the load times during cut scenes).

And personally, since I buy most of my games digitally now, I don't really care either way.

PS4 Bluray Hardware Cost Source
http://press.ihs.com/press-release/design-supply-chain-media/sony-nears-breakeven-point-playstation-4-hardware-costs

This!

 

SvennoJ said:

Cobretti2 said:
Wow people need to bloody read about tech and not just play games

Cart of 80s and 90s is not the same of 2016 lol.

Let's look at today's gaming problems:
- Huge installs
- Patch installs
- Addon installs
- All digitally tied to that console
- Eventually you run out of hdd space, so need to upgrade drives or uninstall games
- When generation ends and servers are off, no more ability to download patches for buggy games. AKA retro gaming is dead on these systems.
- Console dies you are screwed as you lost all your patches and broken games become unplayable.


Now with some modern carts, lets look at the positives:
- Could make a hybrid with read only and write memory. This would allow the core game to be stored on read only section. Game saves and patches updates could be written to the write section.
- Could be taken to a mates house and played on their system.
- No need to upgrade hdds because of space issues.
- When a consoles dies you simply put it in a new one and it works.
- Retro friendly as all the patches will be there until the cart dies. So means you can replay those games.

That's a very expensive idea. Read / write cards that are fast too are a lot more expensive than pressing a disc. The read speed of that example card up there is not even as fast as a standard hdd, write speed is usually much slower, games with autosaves would be a problem. Plus what upper limit do you set for patches and dlc.

I've never lost the ability to read a dvd or blu-ray, yet several of my memory cards have gone corrupt, one completely unreadable after 6 years. There's tons of recovery software for memory cards, it's not the most reliable long term tech. Read only cards are probably a lot more durable yet that negates all the benefits.

It's an attractive solution, all patches, dlc and save games together, yet with game prices at $80 already here, not worth it.
Better is a console that can take full benefit of an SSD drive and keep the delivery system cheap, disc or download.

 

Yes. I've got DVDs from the 90's that are still running.

I can't say the same for memory cards.

 

 

Soundwave said:
Disc media is probably on its way out, in general people stopped using discs for music ages ago and using them for movies and PC software has also started to fizzle out.

Games will be next.

Your kids will laugh at you when you tell them you used to play video games on plate sized shiny discs.

 

Yes, I believe digital is the future.

Physical will never die entirely though.