Arkaign said:
Okay people : a quick lesson for those who are somewhat uninformed on the subject of what makes cartridges tick!
(1)- I see a lot of people try to equate cost by using SD or other flash memory media as a reference point. This is exceedingly inaccurate, because flash memory is inherently different than :
(2)- Mask Roms. This is what read-only mass-produced games are normally placed on with regards to video game console carts, be they old home consoles or handhelds. The process goes like this :
First, the games exist entirely in a dev system on a hard drive.
Then, the early prototypes are put onto EEPROM or other reprogrammable storage and tested on the target console or device
Last, when the greenlight is given, a mask rom master is made, and the entire run of carts is created using photo-lithography
Mask Roms are exceedingly cheap by volume. The master is very expensive to create compared to a single SD card or the like, but the further copies are minimal. Thing of it in simplified terms of an engraved plate that is used over and over on cheap regular paper to create high-quality prints.
Whereas a 32GB or 64GB SD re-writable media might cost in the $$ range, a mask rom product in a medium-yield mid-size production number event is in the pennies range instead. The PCB and cart package itself along with the label and box easily equals the cost of the mask rom, or exceeds it. The other big advantage to mask rom products is durability. Where an EEPROM or flash memory device by nature degrades over time in a fairly aggressive manner by comparison, a mask rom can expect a very long lifespan, and a much tougher resistance to heat/cold/humidity conditions. As a non-rewritable etched piece of matter, it's non-volatile in nature. Its zeros and ones are hard engraved forever, or as long as the physical materials it exists on stays cohesive. In the right conditions, its entirely feasible that a mask-rom in it's little surface-mount package could exist for hundreds or even thousands of years. The other components on the cart assembly would degrade more rapidly. Plastic by oxidation, metallic contacts by rust, paper and ink on the label chemically unbonding and being leeched by humidity, etc.
The reason that CD and then DVD replaced carts wasn't purely cost, it was technology itself. Technology has moved a long, LONG way since those optical standards were created. A return to carts for a physical media is actually pretty nice as an idea. Load times could be hugely improved, capacity would exceed non-specialty BD discs, and size (think a DS cart size) would be more convenient than a 5.25" or even Gamecube-size optical disc. |
Kudos for your post!
Some little additions (not just to your post but also other posts here):
1. Cartridges got replaced by optical discs not because of the costs (there was an advantage for optical discs, but as you explained, it's not that big), but because of the capacity of cartridges by the time. At the launch of the Nintendo 64, the Gamepaks could hold up to 12 MB, compared to the 650MB of a CD-ROM. Due to miniaturisation Nintendo later achieved up to 64MB, which is still just 1/10th of an optical disc at the time. In theory, it would have been possible to add even more space, but that would have made the costs rise expansionally as this would have needed bigger masks and thus less could be made per wafer (in general chips get paid per wafer, so the smaller the chips the more chips there are on a wafer and the less expensive it gets in the end).
2. While the memory itself wouldn't be much more expensive to produce, the packaging of cartridges on the other hand is much more expansive and time-consuming than just engraving an optical disc with it's data. How much depends heavely on the format (classic cartridges or more something like SD cards, for example) and machinery involved, but it's more expensive nontheless any which way.
3. Cartridges would have an additional advantage I didn't see getting mentioned yet: You can add some flash memory to save your games or some user-made content on them (like maps in Mario Maker or Smash Bros), transferring them to friends without having to take the whole console with you
4. Some do fear for backwards compability, but considering that Nintendo will be obliged to change the hardware basis anyway (IBM processors have moved completly into the High Power Computing direction for big Servers, which ist wholefully incompatible with the needs of a videogame console - and probably forced Nintendo to reuse the same basic chip technology as in the 2 consoles before again), I doubt there will be backwards compatibility anyway for Wii U optical discs. They might get emulated if the hardware of the next console is strong enough, but even then I suppose that would only apply over the eShop.
5. The ROMs don't mean you can't update games. After all, games on Wii U NODs (Nintendo Optical Discs) can also be updated, the updates being saved on the flash drive or attached hard drive. Heck, if you include enough Flash memory on the cartridge, you could possibly even save the updates on the cartridge itself (see point 3)
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