Actually I think it is better to save your game on the same media as the game itself is instead of saving it somewhere else. I mean, there are two other possibilities:

One is to save on the console itself which isn't bad, but it means that you can't just take your game to a friend and continue there, and if your console dies, you may lose all your saved progresses in games.

The other method is to save on memory cards or something like that. This brings the advantage that you can take it easily somewhere else, but it means you have another item you have to pay and keep an eye on. Also, you probably have several save games on one card, so one card that isn't working anymore means several lost savegames again.

So in my opinion, saving on a cartridge seems like the best you can get.

If you think flash memory cards as cartridges, than yeah. Otherwise, no. If they can manufacture the memory cards as cheap as discs and also expand their size to at least 50gbs(Bluray), they can become viable, but it´s not very likelly.

Well the problem is limited save spots, which are very annoying when games only end up having one. Also they would need a way to work around updating rosters for sports games. I'm sure it could be done, but I know I need to R4 all my sports games so I can manually download new saves for updated rosters on my DS. Especially Tecmo Bowl.

Joke thread I hope.

These level of questions keep popping up, could you not at least have done a google search for some info and found out yourself. Daily I see the most nonsensical questions that most people who know how to turn on a computer would never ask.

I believe that the next next generation (Wii 3, PS5, XBOXwhatever) will have NO disc drive. Everything will be downloaded.
Next gen will be the last using disc drives...

Probably not, it would cost way too much money compared to discs.

In the next gen we'll very likely use 4x-8x Blu-ray or HD-DVD or similar. That will give very fast transfer rates and make optical media faster than ever at a low software cost per copy. That's 18-36 MB/s of read speed.

Solid state media will not be cheap enough anytime soon.

Depends on what u consider a cartridge.

I mean flash memory seems to be the wave of the future, all u have to is stick it in a an NES case and boom you haev a cartridge, but never again will we see the old style cartridges in hoe consoles.

Handhelds yes.

It is not necessarily impossible, but the cartridge would have to involve a new medium for information storage. That was also sensitive to environmental conditions thus needing protection. Which would basically mandate a sealed system. This is not far fetched, but it is a considerable distance away in time.

Basically you might be slipping carts into a console again thirty years from now. With an absurd amount of data on them for photo realistic environments. That said it still wouldn't technically be a cart as you are considering them. It probably would not be a silicon board, and would probably be a slab of quartz in a plastic housing. For all the love of discs they do have storage limitations. That a crystal can easily surpass. The technology just isn't there yet though.

However by the time we get to Quantum computing you can also kiss console generations goodbye, because you really have reached a physical limitation. I know this discussion was not looking that far out, but in the realm of decades it certainly is possible. Discs are popular now due to unparalleled storage. Decades from now it could easily be a more three dimensional shape.

consoles are likely to be almost entirely online next gen. psn already has full blu ray games on it. there are a lot of tricks that devs can use if they know they only have to make it for the hard drive and not a disk.

cartridges work for hand helds because the expectation of hand helds is smaller games. cartidges only make sense (financially) when they are made in small sizes. using small cartidges keeps hand held costs down.