Should next gen kinda do away DISC DRIVES?

[Pemalite]

Intrinsic said:

Unless I am mistaken, the current consoles from sony and MS don't do traditional data streaming like the disc based consoles of old. Previously (PS1,PS2,PS3/XB,360) incorporated data streaming from the disc to system memory during play and the last gen consoles took that a little further with combined streaming from both the disc and whatever part of the game was installed on the HDD. But today we have full game installs where the streaming is only done to get the game data copied over to your internal HDD while you are playing the game. 

Sort-of correct.

The Xbox One will install *all* of it's data to the Hard Drive before you are allowed to play it. (Some exceptions like: Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which installs a game at a time, so you can play Halo 1 while Halo 2 is installing.)
From there the Xbox One will stream data from the technically superior mechanical drive (Verses Optical) to system memory.

The Playstation 4 however... Will let you play a game sooner after an initial small install and continuously stream data to the mechanical disk which in turn streams to system memory.

There are advantages to both approaches. Sony lets you game faster, Microsoft's approach should provide more performance, especially during random reads.

Last gen did take it to the extreme, it was because developers were trying to free up more memory, the less information you need in memory and the more you can stream on-demand, the better.
There were a few games that would stream from both Optical Disk and Hard Drive on the 360 though.

We probably won't see a return of that this generation, there is less of a need.

But if the consoles were cart based, they would side-step the entire install procedure and just stream directly from cart, carts can easily be faster than a HDD. It will be more plug-and-play experience if you will.

Intrinsic said:

Now why that is all important is because it negates whatever benefits there are to be gained as far as carts are concerned unless of course the size and form factor is of paramount importance. To try and explain:

The platform holder currently expects all games to install to the internal storage. Thats because they are sure they get all round better gaming performance and faster data streaming from that internal drive than a disc. And even faster than a cart. So as far as functionality goes, all the disc (which in this case serves as no more than a container) does is allow you move its data to your internal drive. This can already be done relatively quickly and is a one time affair.

Its important you remember that; now taking all that into account, they already have a medium that can offer great transfer speeds (internal storage), so why not opt for the cheapest container (discs) possible? Cause to use carts, whose only benefit is the improved transfer speeds is somewhat redundant, especially when you consider all the other technologies popping up in with regards to data storage.

So ideally, they should stick with discs as that will always (or at least for the forseeable future) offer the cheapest solution as a container for large amounts of data. And instead build in support for things like SATA 3 or better yet, m.2 NVMe iterfaces for the internal drives as those will offer significantly better transfer speeds than a cart could realistically ever manage. 

TL;DR, makes no sense having both carts and support for SATA3 SSDs (300-550MB/s) or even m.2 NVMe SSDs (1800-2500MB/s) as the bandwidths offers by the carts wouldn't ever be used and would instead just serve as a cost limiter.

Carts tend to be faster than mechanical and optical disks.
Carts tend to be more durable than optical disks.
Carts tend to be smaller and more portable than optical and mechanical disks.
Carts use less power than optical and mechanical disks.

I do agree that there is zero sense to have both carts and an internal SSD though in a fixed home console. But if you go the SSD route and only have like 32GB of the stuff, then Carts would still have a place... I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of waiting for hours for crap to install on the Xbox One.