Teoulas on 04 July 2008
| montrealsoon said: That direction taken was at the time, and Nintendo lost out by sticking with cartridges. Fast forward almost a decade and they made the exact same decision (DS -vs- PSP), and they bested SONY. I always find that funny (especially given the DS is similarly powered to the N64 more than any other Nintendo console). |
Well, handheld and home consoles are different beasts. Back then, when the first 3D consoles were released (PS1, N64) the CD was necessary. Textures, FMV and digital audio could barely fit on a cartridge, but the CD had a large enough capacity and helped Sony and the PS1. The handhelds are quite different. You don't need high quality graphics, powerful CPUs or optical disc based media. Disc drives are more power hungry than solid state memory. Nintendo going with cartridges kept the DS running longer with a single battery charge, just as the gameboy had an amazing battery life, by having a greyscale screen and lower spec hardware than the competing handhelds. Disc drives are fine on home consoles, because they are plugged in the AC outlet.
