Do you suppose the next generation of consoles will use cartridges?

[onlyCOpunk]

Well I don't want to get into a huge argument about what is "retro" but Wikipedia sums it up pretty nicely.

"Retro is a term used to describe aspects of modern culture which are consciously derivative or imitative of those trends, modes, fashions, or attitudes of the recent past which have or had come to be seen as unfashionable."

Nothing created in the 90's is retro because nothing from the 90's is "making a comeback" according to the definition. There are some things that will NEVER be considered retro and the N64 is one of them, classic yes, but retro no. It's like saying the PS One is retro.

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: purbeast0
if you think cartridges are cheaper than optical media you are clearly mistaken.

When did anyone claim that cartridges are cheaper than optical media? Did you even read the thread?

I'm actually going to agree with you, downloading is the way of the future but they might have the separate SSD that you get and a code for the game that downloads it to the SSD, and leaving room for more games on the same SSD.

In theory it would work, but the other problem would be the piracy, which you can never avoid. And this would be if SSD's fell to a price of say... $25 for a 64gb SSD? Maybe a little less so that there would the option of higher storage too.

But for this and the next generation I think all that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo will do the digital downloads.

 

[Baked]

To people who say they want a physical medium, you're in the minority. As evident by iTune store's huge success, the avg. consumer don't mind downloadable media. Hell, Steam's not doing so bad either. If gaming companies decide to make games downloadable thru the console's network, people will buy it. Hell, it'll save game companies a shit ton of money by not making retail boxes and manuals. When you download the game, the manual can come with it you can view it as an option in the game's main menu on screen. Think about it. Instead of waiting inline at 12AM on launch day for a new game, you can be sitting comfortably at home downloading the game, and have it within minutes.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: MrPickins

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
To the OP

If you think retro=N64, you need to take another look at a video game timeline.

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

:thumbsup:

his point was that carts are retro... the 64 was the last home console to be 'retro'...

the elitism is strong in this thread...

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: sdifox
Can anyone say Nintendo 64?

What about it? The system had great games, and I miss my N64... but not for the cartridges! It was great still playing with cartridges, I admit... but paying more for games, and having shitty textures was a huge drawback. With the PS1, the textures were far superior even though the system couldn't display as many polygons.

Flash memory is more expensive than disc-based media, and can't match the cost/storage of disc media.

+

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox
Can anyone say Nintendo 64?

What about it? The system had great games, and I miss my N64... but not for the cartridges! It was great still playing with cartridges, I admit... but paying more for games, and having shitty textures was a huge drawback. With the PS1, the textures were far superior even though the system couldn't display as many polygons.

Flash memory is more expensive than disc-based media, and can't match the cost/storage of disc media.

+

It was the cost of the cartridges that killed it. They were not making enough profit because the games have to stay more or less the same price to other platforms but their cost is exponential.

 

[erwos]

The OP doesn't even make that much sense. All a "cartridge" is is write-once flash memory. Could games start coming on SD cards? Sure - didn't the N-GAGE do it already? Does it make financial sense compared to BR-Ds? Not at all. Flash cards are not even necessarily faster, and they are WAY more expensive.

Next gen, we'll see consoles with BR-D drives, some amount of on-board flash (2gb?), and user-replaceable hard drives. That'll stop the whining about no on-board storage, yet provide console manufacturers a way to make a hard-drive-less console to leverage better manufacturing processes to their fullest extent.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
Download-able games would SUCK. Having the box + manual + disc is part of the fun

I'm with you on this. There are many issues with the idea of downloadable games.
1. Reselling them when you're done
2. Loaning them to a friend
3. If you only have one source to buy them from, there isn't much incentive to sell them for less than MSRP.

I'm with you on preferring the physical media. People say Blu-ray will become irrelevant because of downloadable movies; or at very least, Blu-ray will be the last physical storage medium for movies. I disagree. I WANT the physical medium. I don't WANT to buy my movies on an AppleTV and have them tied to my AppleTV.

Those three reasons are EXACTLY why most publishers would push for downloadable content. Add that to the fact that a downloaded copy costs less than producing and selling a physical copy and you've got a winner (from a profit standpoint).

I personally prefer having physical media, and furthermore I loved cartridges.

Yeap, if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo thought they could do away with physical media and still keep their same customer base; I guarantee all three would do away with physical media in the next generation of consoles.

I am an avid gamer, but I will not buy any console that's based around a downloadable content only model. I like to resell a game when I'm done with it, take it over to a friend's house to play on occasion, and pick up classics when they're in the bargain bin. There is no value proposition to me in buying a console which takes all those benefits away from me.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
Well I don't want to get into a huge argument about what is "retro" but Wikipedia sums it up pretty nicely.

"Retro is a term used to describe aspects of modern culture which are consciously derivative or imitative of those trends, modes, fashions, or attitudes of the recent past which have or had come to be seen as unfashionable."

Nothing created in the 90's is retro because nothing from the 90's is "making a comeback" according to the definition. There are some things that will NEVER be considered retro and the N64 is one of them, classic yes, but retro no. It's like saying the PS One is retro.

Actually, the original post is theorizing cartridges could make a comeback. If games were indeed released in a cartridge medium, they would most definitely be considered retro by your and Wikipedia's definition of the word.

 

[sdifox]

They should bring back the MD style media casing for games to deter piracy. Custom cased disk may cost more to make, but it is still a hell lot cheaper than piracy. If nothing else, it will make rental copies a lot more resilient to abuse.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
Download-able games would SUCK. Having the box + manual + disc is part of the fun

I'm with you on this. There are many issues with the idea of downloadable games.
1. Reselling them when you're done
2. Loaning them to a friend
3. If you only have one source to buy them from, there isn't much incentive to sell them for less than MSRP.

I'm with you on preferring the physical media. People say Blu-ray will become irrelevant because of downloadable movies; or at very least, Blu-ray will be the last physical storage medium for movies. I disagree. I WANT the physical medium. I don't WANT to buy my movies on an AppleTV and have them tied to my AppleTV.

Those three reasons are EXACTLY why most publishers would push for downloadable content. Add that to the fact that a downloaded copy costs less than producing and selling a physical copy and you've got a winner (from a profit standpoint).

I personally prefer having physical media, and furthermore I loved cartridges.

Yeap, if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo thought they could do away with physical media and still keep their same customer base; I guarantee all three would do away with physical media in the next generation of consoles.

I am an avid gamer, but I will not buy any console that's based around a downloadable content only model. I like to resell a game when I'm done with it, take it over to a friend's house to play on occasion, and pick up classics when they're in the bargain bin. There is no value proposition to me in buying a console which takes all those benefits away from me.

That's why, at least Sony has tried to do something good for the downloadable games model: include the right to download it to five different consoles with your PSN ID. That allows you to be able to play it at a friends house (and they went a step further: the game on the system can be played by anyone iirc), but still can't sell it back. But they tend to be cheaper games.
I don't want BIG games to be PSN only. They borderline pissed me off with Warhawk being a $60 bundle and $40 download-only, with the game being out for quite awhile before a $40 BD version, without the bundled BT Headset. I already had the set. That's how I bought it, once that came out.

Games need to always be available on a physical medium, and you can offer download versions too if you want, just provide the option.

+

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: sdifox
They should bring back the MD style media casing for games to deter piracy. Custom cased disk may cost more to make, but it is still a hell lot cheaper than piracy. If nothing else, it will make rental copies a lot more resilient to abuse.

agree. two birds one stone too! cartridge-like packaging, but better disc media.
Or just go with a proprietary format, like Sega with the GD-ROM for the Dreamcast, but prevent a game running if its on a different format. So, make a special version of Blu-ray somehow coded or uses a different storage size like CD/GD-ROM, so that the system can recognize its a game disc by this characteristic. That should take care of that very simply. The Dreamcast's flaw was that people were able to run games from CD-ROMs.

 

[warcrow]

I seriously seriously doubt it.

But I'm actually hoping that manufacturing costs will be down and reliability will be a little higher, or atleast enough so that Solid State Drives will be in, and HDDs will be out.

That would be suh-weet.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: destrekor

That's why, at least Sony has tried to do something good for the downloadable games model: include the right to download it to five different consoles with your PSN ID. That allows you to be able to play it at a friends house (and they went a step further: the game on the system can be played by anyone iirc), but still can't sell it back. But they tend to be cheaper games.
I don't want BIG games to be PSN only. They borderline pissed me off with Warhawk being a $60 bundle and $40 download-only, with the game being out for quite awhile before a $40 BD version, without the bundled BT Headset. I already had the set. That's how I bought it, once that came out.

Games need to always be available on a physical medium, and you can offer download versions too if you want, just provide the option.

+

Yup, I drove all over the place looking for Warhawk without the headset. No way was I going to buy it on PSN. Finally after a half dozen stores I called my wife and she figured out what I was doing, and she said she wanted a Bluetooth headset for her phone anyway.

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: Eeezee
Those three reasons are EXACTLY why most publishers would push for downloadable content. Add that to the fact that a downloaded copy costs less than producing and selling a physical copy and you've got a winner (from a profit standpoint).

I personally prefer having physical media, and furthermore I loved cartridges.

Yeap, if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo thought they could do away with physical media and still keep their same customer base; I guarantee all three would do away with physical media in the next generation of consoles.

I am an avid gamer, but I will not buy any console that's based around a downloadable content only model. I like to resell a game when I'm done with it, take it over to a friend's house to play on occasion, and pick up classics when they're in the bargain bin. There is no value proposition to me in buying a console which takes all those benefits away from me.

And this is why I don't think we'll see digital downloads only next generation. People wouldn't stand for it. I wouldn't suck it up and buy all of my games new for full price - I'd just not buy as many games. I'm sure many are like me.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox
They should bring back the MD style media casing for games to deter piracy. Custom cased disk may cost more to make, but it is still a hell lot cheaper than piracy. If nothing else, it will make rental copies a lot more resilient to abuse.

agree. two birds one stone too! cartridge-like packaging, but better disc media.
Or just go with a proprietary format, like Sega with the GD-ROM for the Dreamcast, but prevent a game running if its on a different format. So, make a special version of Blu-ray somehow coded or uses a different storage size like CD/GD-ROM, so that the system can recognize its a game disc by this characteristic. That should take care of that very simply. The Dreamcast's flaw was that people were able to run games from CD-ROMs.

I'm pretty certain using MD style media casings for every single game would be much more expensive than the losses they take from piracy.

Also, I think Nintendo's idea with the Gamecube was brilliant. They recorded and read the data back off the disc in reverse order (ie the disc spun backwards compared to a PC drive). Couple reading the disc backwards, AACS, BD+, and epoxy over the main interfaces to the optical drive to give you a very potent piracy deterent.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Cartridges have massive cost implications. The first issue is cost of the medium. Cartridges contain chips which are an order of magnitude mroe expensive to produce than optical media. The second is stocking and planning. If you exceed or underestimate cartridge sales by 10% you can wipe out your entire profit on a game. The old Pac Man Atari 2600 story springs to mind, along with the ET game (but that deserved to die).

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox
They should bring back the MD style media casing for games to deter piracy. Custom cased disk may cost more to make, but it is still a hell lot cheaper than piracy. If nothing else, it will make rental copies a lot more resilient to abuse.

agree. two birds one stone too! cartridge-like packaging, but better disc media.
Or just go with a proprietary format, like Sega with the GD-ROM for the Dreamcast, but prevent a game running if its on a different format. So, make a special version of Blu-ray somehow coded or uses a different storage size like CD/GD-ROM, so that the system can recognize its a game disc by this characteristic. That should take care of that very simply. The Dreamcast's flaw was that people were able to run games from CD-ROMs.

I'm pretty certain using MD style media casings for every single game would be much more expensive than the losses they take from piracy.

Also, I think Nintendo's idea with the Gamecube was brilliant. They recorded and read the data back off the disc in reverse order (ie the disc spun backwards compared to a PC drive). Couple reading the disc backwards, AACS, BD+, and epoxy over the main interfaces to the optical drive to give you a very potent piracy deterent.

What's funny is that whatever nintendo did do with gamecube, it wasn't really that resistant to piracy. The non-standard size (and lack of interest) probably did more to protect it from piracy than anything else. The cube's copy protection is cracked with a $2 interrupt controller (and as action replay and freeloader showed, even that's not necessary if you have a good enough production line) that's completely invisible to the software. Xbox piracy may be better known, but it's generally more complex and easily detectable by Microsoft as it requires modifying the underlying firmware.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox
They should bring back the MD style media casing for games to deter piracy. Custom cased disk may cost more to make, but it is still a hell lot cheaper than piracy. If nothing else, it will make rental copies a lot more resilient to abuse.

agree. two birds one stone too! cartridge-like packaging, but better disc media.
Or just go with a proprietary format, like Sega with the GD-ROM for the Dreamcast, but prevent a game running if its on a different format. So, make a special version of Blu-ray somehow coded or uses a different storage size like CD/GD-ROM, so that the system can recognize its a game disc by this characteristic. That should take care of that very simply. The Dreamcast's flaw was that people were able to run games from CD-ROMs.

I'm pretty certain using MD style media casings for every single game would be much more expensive than the losses they take from piracy.

Also, I think Nintendo's idea with the Gamecube was brilliant. They recorded and read the data back off the disc in reverse order (ie the disc spun backwards compared to a PC drive). Couple reading the disc backwards, AACS, BD+, and epoxy over the main interfaces to the optical drive to give you a very potent piracy deterent.

gamecube has been moddable for ages now.

and this cartridge thing will never happen. every freaking system out there other than the ps3 has been piratable, regardless of the medium used to play games off of. no matter what format it comes out on, systems will become piratable. it may take time but IT WILL BECOME PIRATABLE!

I mean hell, my friend has a peripheral for SNES that plays games off of floppy discs.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: sdifox
They should bring back the MD style media casing for games to deter piracy. Custom cased disk may cost more to make, but it is still a hell lot cheaper than piracy. If nothing else, it will make rental copies a lot more resilient to abuse.

agree. two birds one stone too! cartridge-like packaging, but better disc media.
Or just go with a proprietary format, like Sega with the GD-ROM for the Dreamcast, but prevent a game running if its on a different format. So, make a special version of Blu-ray somehow coded or uses a different storage size like CD/GD-ROM, so that the system can recognize its a game disc by this characteristic. That should take care of that very simply. The Dreamcast's flaw was that people were able to run games from CD-ROMs.

I'm pretty certain using MD style media casings for every single game would be much more expensive than the losses they take from piracy.

Also, I think Nintendo's idea with the Gamecube was brilliant. They recorded and read the data back off the disc in reverse order (ie the disc spun backwards compared to a PC drive). Couple reading the disc backwards, AACS, BD+, and epoxy over the main interfaces to the optical drive to give you a very potent piracy deterent.

How so? media has never been expensive, it's the IP that is the expensive part.
Say something with similar size factor to the old MO drive, with a blue laser instead and off you go. Hell, they can probably buy all the hd-dvd hardware for a song, just need to encase the media once it's pressed.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: Golgatha
Also, I think Nintendo's idea with the Gamecube was brilliant. They recorded and read the data back off the disc in reverse order (ie the disc spun backwards compared to a PC drive). Couple reading the disc backwards, AACS, BD+, and epoxy over the main interfaces to the optical drive to give you a very potent piracy deterent.

The GC discs didn't spin backwards damnit!!! Open a GC while it's running!

The only thing cheaper flash memory means is that Nintendo's next portable console will still definitely use cartridges.

 

[CasioTech]

Cost aside, can a cartridge deliver faster/larger bandwidth over a blueray disc???

 

[erwos]

Originally posted by: CasioTech
Cost aside, can a cartridge deliver faster/larger bandwidth over a blueray disc???

Sure. Think of SSDs, for instance, some of which can be on par with hard drives in terms of performance.

Of course, setting cost aside makes any number of bad ideas into good ideas...

 

[CasioTech]

it's funny to see that cartridges came long before optical drives (became phased out by optical drives for over a decade) but are making a comeback and are still vastly superior. Cartridges are the alpha and omega, it seems. If we do go back to using them in the future it would make you wonder why we even invented optical drives/discs in the first place (other than their cheap production cost of course.)

 

[bullbert]

To remove the failure rate component due to the optical drive mechanics, optical storage crystals will be used.

Envision the movie scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey of Dave pulling Hal's crysal memory rods?

HAL: Say, Dave... The quick brown fox jumped over the fat lazy dog...
The square root of pi is 1.7724538090...
log e to the base ten is 0.4342944 ...
the square root of ten is 3.16227766...
I am HAL 9000 computer.
I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12th, 1991.
My first instructor was Mr. Arkany. He taught me to sing a song...
it goes like this... "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you..."


Can you just see it now? Instead of a RROD, your XBox 1440 (which replaced the XBox 720) starts to sing "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do." You start to use the Towel Trick and your XBox 1440 says "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that" and IMs the Microsoft Cops (formally the Phone Cops from WKRP) who, within seconds, kick in your door and drag you off (as in A Clockwork Orange)

 

[TanisHalfElven]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: RESmonkey
Download-able games would SUCK. Having the box + manual + disc is part of the fun

I'm with you on this. There are many issues with the idea of downloadable games.
1. Reselling them when you're done
2. Loaning them to a friend
3. If you only have one source to buy them from, there isn't much incentive to sell them for less than MSRP.

I'm with you on preferring the physical media. People say Blu-ray will become irrelevant because of downloadable movies; or at very least, Blu-ray will be the last physical storage medium for movies. I disagree. I WANT the physical medium. I don't WANT to buy my movies on an AppleTV and have them tied to my AppleTV.

don't worry. even if internet connections got fast enough to DL a 20 gb game in 1 day, there'll be another physical medium that has 1 TB on a disc and there'll be a console that can use that 1 TB of data. IMO soon a terabytes will become like the gigabyte is now.