Cartridges or optical discs?

[Spindel]

Pemalite said:

pokoko said:

Then I'll download it.

Just like Ram?

Spindel said:

Specially the cartriges of the 8 and 16-bit eras where they allowed for co-processors and specialized chipsets that could expand on the base systems capabilities.

You do realise that inside the NES/SNES/N64 carts was a ton of empty space right?

The Switch/3DS carts can *technically* have Co-Processors as well.
It's unlikely due to additional costs...
The interconnect not having the appropriate levels of bandwidth... (We need GB/s not MB/s)
And the fact that processors these days are so powerful, they require a heatsink and/or a fan... Not exactly great in a cart. A passively cooled small co-processor would likely not offer much benefit over the powerful base device in this day and age.

But it is still possible, just no point to it anymore.

Azzanation said:
CDs sucked especially in the early days of gaming. Cartridges is just a superior format. Today Cartridges can hold more memory than Blu-Rays which was the only advantage it had.

Disks still have the advantage of cost and manufacturing time.
Stamping disks is so much faster than fabrication of chips, building of PCB, moulding of plastics and then assembling it all together.

Mr_No said:

I choose optical discs because they allow for larger capacities and a better sound quality

Not any more.

I never said that I want a cartrige that physically looks like the 8-bit, 16-bit and N64 ones.

 

What I want is the ability for co-processors (whitch will require a bit roomier cartriges than the DS, 3DS and switch ones.

 

It doesn't need to be a fully blown GPU (like the Super FX and FX 2 chips). But I could see a posibility for maybe a ARM chip (which doesn't neccesairly needs a big heatsink, if it needs any at all) fore some extra processing power for thing like maybe AI (yeah yeah I know ARM are more general purpose and not suited for AI but you get the point). Or a custom chip that helps to allow for some newer generation shader that is not supported for the aging hardware in the console for crisper graphics (even if I see new chipsets for stuff that is mostly related to under the hood calculations over graphical expandability since the graphics race is tiring and in most of the powerhouse consoles and PC I feel like the big budget games spend all the budget on visuals and forget gameplay).