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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Why are we still using discs instead of cartridges?

 

What should we use based on expenses?

Cartridges 201 52.48%
 
Discs 182 47.52%
 
Total:383
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.



God bless You.

My Total Sales prediction for PS4 by the end of 2021: 110m+

When PS4 will hit 100m consoles sold: Before Christmas 2019

There were three ravens sat on a tree / They were as blacke as they might be / The one of them said to his mate, Where shall we our breakfast take?


Around the Network
Intrinsic said:
zorg1000 said:

So Nintendo needs to either copy the others or "catch lightning in a bottle"? I think that term is used way too loosely.

The funnly thing about people saying going with cartridges would kill 3rd party support is that 3DS & Vita have significantly stronger 3rd party support than Wii U.

I'm beginning to think its more like some just dont like that phrase and less that the phrase actually doesnt apply to nintendos plight.

Look at it how you want to look at it. Call it copy, do what they are doing or just do good business. Call it catch lightning in a bottle or not but the facts are simple.

History has shown, and nintendo has 3 failed consoles to show for it, that first party alone is not enough to make a successful platform.

The onky exception to this was the Wii in the last four consoles they have released. And that was becauss of motion gaming and the game changer it became. 

Such a phenomenon is what is referred to as catching lightning in a bottle. To do something that isnt only different and no one thinks will work but that goes on to become more successful than anyone could have imagined. 

If nintendo are again ignoring all the the things sony and ms are doing or do to be successful, then it must mean they feel they are going to do something that not only differemtiates them but is better. Unless u feel they are in this to sell sub 20M consoles with the NX too. 

No, the phrase is used too often, Nintendo can be successful without pulling off the near impossible and without becoming a PS/XB triplet.

I never said that 1st party alone is enough but at the same time multiplats have never, ever in the history of Nintendo devices been a major selling factor.

What Nintendo needs is an ecosystem that has a steady flow of quality releases while having appealing hardware and an effective marketing campaign.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

CaptainExplosion said:
0D0 said:

This!

 

 

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

I can't say the same for memory cards.

 

 

 

Yes, I believe digital is the future.

Physical will never die entirely though.

Well you're outnumbered. Just look at the results in this poll: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=216617&page=1

Yes, I am T_T

I buy almost everything digitally: music, books, games, apps, comics, films, series...



God bless You.

My Total Sales prediction for PS4 by the end of 2021: 110m+

When PS4 will hit 100m consoles sold: Before Christmas 2019

There were three ravens sat on a tree / They were as blacke as they might be / The one of them said to his mate, Where shall we our breakfast take?


CaptainExplosion said:
0D0 said:

This!

 

 

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

I can't say the same for memory cards.

 

 

 

Yes, I believe digital is the future.

Physical will never die entirely though.

Well you're outnumbered. Just look at the results in this poll: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=216617&page=1

lets not act like a vgchartz poll is indictive of the overall market



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

CaptainExplosion said:
0D0 said:

Yes, I am T_T

I buy almost everything digitally: music, books, games, apps, comics, films, series...

But do you see the point I made? Not enough consumers are willing to buy a digital only console.

A forum is not an indicative of the market. The day Sony and Microsoft decided to go digital only, they will and everyone will have to accept that.

Many people said that wouldn't buy an iPhone because of the lack of USB/memory card. Apple didn't give a damm.



God bless You.

My Total Sales prediction for PS4 by the end of 2021: 110m+

When PS4 will hit 100m consoles sold: Before Christmas 2019

There were three ravens sat on a tree / They were as blacke as they might be / The one of them said to his mate, Where shall we our breakfast take?


Around the Network

Production costs.



CaptainExplosion said:
0D0 said:

Yes, I am T_T

I buy almost everything digitally: music, books, games, apps, comics, films, series...

But do you see the point I made? Not enough consumers are willing to buy a digital only console.

Just like not enough consumers were willing to purchase the first cellphones with a camera, the first smartphone, the first tablet, Steam had a really slow and bumpy start, electric cars were a fad the first time the showed up, the first digital cameras were too expensive, had poor storage and inferior objectives etc. If someone says "object or solution x is the future", you can't simply point to current consumer habbits and claim that the statement is false.

There is already a massive movement towards digital, movies, TV series and music have made the transition and optical media make up for a small percentage now, but the digital alternatives had a slow start. Games are harder, they take up more room and require faster connections to download in a reasonable amount of time, but connection speeds are increasing all the time, even phones have access to 50-80Mbit networks out of the box now, and storage solutions are becoming bigger and cheaper by the month, my 500GB SSD would have cost 5-6 times as much only 3-4 years ago. Not to mention game-streaming, which is about to become a viable option as well, completely bypassing the storage issues. A connection that can stream 4K images should have no problems streaming the main assets from a big-budget game.

People used the same arguments about HD images that you're using about digital games now, they said it was a non-factor due to a slow start, people were plastering the forums with the statistics on blu-ray sales vs DVD and having a merry old time and taking about how immensely long it would take for HD TV's to ever become standard and how the upgrade was also not necessary to begin with. And here we are. Same thing was about digital music when MP3 rolled around, poor sound quality, shoddy (and illegal) services, bad compression and poor compatibility. Solutions arrived in time and things changed and the market never looked back.

Bottom line; saying that consumers do not have a habbit today does in no way disarm arguments claiming that they might in the near future. The mainstream consumer changes habbits pretty quickly when they come around, and they leave existing solutions and platforms really quickly as well.

 

Edit; smartphone and tablet games are digital only, they're pulling in billions and billions of dollars every year, so it's not like consumers aren't willing to embrace a fully realized and streamlined digital-only platform. Yes, traditional games are more complex but the point still stands.



RolStoppable said:

Are you just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing? The occasional game that doesn't fit on a 16GB card would go on a 32GB or even 64GB card. In order to have a point, you would have to believe that the majority of Nintendo's next generation games will exceed a file size of 16GB. But like I said, Nintendo's history points to the opposite.

Aren't you guilty of the same thing that your accusing me of ? 

Like I said, no console manufacturer has defied the trend of power and storage ... 



zorg1000 said:

No, the phrase is used too often, Nintendo can be successful without pulling off the near impossible and without becoming a PS/XB triplet.

I never said that 1st party alone is enough but at the same time multiplats have never, ever in the history of Nintendo devices been a major selling factor.

What Nintendo needs is an ecosystem that has a steady flow of quality releases while having appealing hardware and an effective marketing campaign.

I don't know when you started following nintendo, but what you are saying isnt true. 

Back before the PS, nintendo never needed to have a multiplat conversation because well, the only options were them and sega and they both conducted business in a very similar way. Nintendo started losing the third parties in the era of the original PS. Culmulating at the point MGS and FF7 released for the PS.

No console nintendo made from the N64 until the Wii had sold more than 30M consoles in any genration.

Its easy to look back now and say multiplats were never a thing with nintendo but that would just be a flat out lie. The only successful console they made in their new thirdpartyless era wss the wii.... and that tells you all you need to know. And by successful i dont just mean selling consoles at a profit. 

The wiiU failed horribly, and again, its easy to say that happend due to bad marketing and whatnot but again you would be wrong.

Here is how i look at nintendo; simply put, why not both? Nintendo can still do what nintendo does if they have third party games on their platform. That wont stop them from making all those awesome nintendo games will it? But it will at the very least level the playing feild. Having every customer to choose between nintendo and everything else is gonna amount to nothing every single time. But if a customer knows he will get fifa, madden, cod, gta, fallout, assasins creed.....etc on his nintendo along side their exclusives it makes for a much easier pill to swallow. 

You and some others make it sound like what the HD twins do is something bad, the way i see it, is that nintendo should at least do that much alomgsiide everything else that they may want to do.

Now you may have a problem with that phrase, but thats literally what nintendo is positioning thrmsleves to do again. Barring some sort of really great innovative feat, the NX will fail if GTA6/COD/RDR/Fallout/Oblivion/BF/Fifa/Madden.....etc is not on it. It will fail. UNLESS, as you hate to hear, they do something just quite extraodinary (again)

I hope i am wrong. 



Intrinsic said:
zorg1000 said:

No, the phrase is used too often, Nintendo can be successful without pulling off the near impossible and without becoming a PS/XB triplet.

I never said that 1st party alone is enough but at the same time multiplats have never, ever in the history of Nintendo devices been a major selling factor.

What Nintendo needs is an ecosystem that has a steady flow of quality releases while having appealing hardware and an effective marketing campaign.

I don't know when you started following nintendo, but what you are saying isnt true. 

Back before the PS, nintendo never needed to have a multiplat conversation because well, the only options were them and sega and they both conducted business in a very similar way. Nintendo started losing the third parties in the era of the original PS. Culmulating at the point MGS and FF7 released for the PS.

No console nintendo made from the N64 until the Wii had sold more than 30M consoles in any genration.

Its easy to look back now and say multiplats were never a thing with nintendo but that would just be a flat out lie. The only successful console they made in their new thirdpartyless era wss the wii.... and that tells you all you need to know. And by successful i dont just mean selling consoles at a profit. 

The wiiU failed horribly, and again, its easy to say that happend due to bad marketing and whatnot but again you would be wrong.

Here is how i look at nintendo; simply put, why not both? Nintendo can still do what nintendo does if they have third party games on their platform. That wont stop them from making all those awesome nintendo games will it? But it will at the very least level the playing feild. Having every customer to choose between nintendo and everything else is gonna amount to nothing every single time. But if a customer knows he will get fifa, madden, cod, gta, fallout, assasins creed.....etc on his nintendo along side their exclusives it makes for a much easier pill to swallow. 

You and some others make it sound like what the HD twins do is something bad, the way i see it, is that nintendo should at least do that much alomgsiide everything else that they may want to do.

Now you may have a problem with that phrase, but thats literally what nintendo is positioning thrmsleves to do again. Barring some sort of really great innovative feat, the NX will fail if GTA6/COD/RDR/Fallout/Oblivion/BF/Fifa/Madden.....etc is not on it. It will fail. UNLESS, as you hate to hear, they do something just quite extraodinary (again)

I hope i am wrong. 

3rd party support=/=multiplats

NES & SNES had great 3rd party support but how many of the big 3rd party games on them were multiplat? What i said holds true, multiplats have never been a major selling force for any Nintendo device ever.

Lets look at Gamecube which had a large amount of multiplats, it had Madden, FIFA, NBA Live, NCAA, 2K Sports, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Spider Man, X-Men, Soul Calibur, Prince of Persia, Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, Need for Speed, James Bond, Hitman, Spyro, Crash, Sims, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Lego, True Crime, SSX, NBA/NFL Street, Fight Night, WWE, The Matrix, Timesplitters, Mortal Kombat, Turok, Burnout, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Batman, Star Wars, Def Jam, Simpsons, King Kong, Ninja Turtles, Rayman, Bloodrayne, Tomb Raider, BMX, and a ton of games based on kids movies/shows.

All of these multiplats did little to nothing for Gamecube, it barely sold 20 million and was only $99 within 2 years of its life.

I have never said what Sony/MS do is bad, just that emulating them will not net Nintendo the same results. Simply having multiplatform support will not cause the PS/XB audience to switch over. That however doesnt mean Nintendo should go out of their way to avoid multiplats, just that they cant make that the lead priority.

The reason i have a problem with the phrase is because it is meant for things that are seemingly impossible, not just difficult. That is what i mean by it being used to loosely.

Nintendo needs to return to the fundamentals that made NES, GB, DS, Wii so successful which was appealing hardware with steady flows of quality & exclusive software that appealed to many different demographics along with strong, effective marketing at consumer friendly prices.

Will that be hard to pull off? Yes, they will have to work their butts off to accomplish it but is it nearly impossible? Not even close.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.