Cartridge vs Disc

[The Blackangel]

There was a time when discs could hold immensely more information that a cartridge. Now however I'm not so sure. For example I have a dual FF7/FF8 cart for my Switch. That's 7 discs of information on one cart.

But when I look around, every system uses discs except Nintendo. They did for the Game Cube and Wii. They tried mini-discs for the GC. To my understanding it was because they thought people wouldn't be able to pirate their games. They went back to regular size discs for the Wii. I never messed with a Wii-U so I don't know what they used there. But now they're back to cartridges, which they haven't bothered with since the N64 era, not counting the DS or Gameboy. Is Nintendo crazy? I know we can get microSD carts with a shitload of memory. A 1Tb card is available for a few hundred right now. I have a 512g in my Switch. But that's not the focus here. They're releasing their games on cartridges while Xbox and PlayStation are using discs. Even the PSP used discs. Is Nintendo stubborn or stuck in the past? Do they know something we don't? Do they own the patent on something? I know Sony owns the patent on Blu-ray discs, as they were created by Sony. But considering that there are 7 discs worth of info on one cart, wouldn't that be the smart way to go? My brain is telling me that a cart can hold more information than a disc. I don't remember the capacity of a Blu-ray disc, since blank ones are too expensive for me at the moment. I do know they hold a shitload more information than a conventional disc though.

Apparently I'm getting the math wrong somewhere.

Edited July 9, 2021 by The Blackangel

[Shagger]

A Blu-ray disk has a capacity of 50gb (25gb per layer). That does seem inadequate for this day in age for big AAA games, so it does make you think, why do they stick to disks? Most PS4/PS5 and X-Box console games sold on disk usually have to install much larger amounts than that of that a Blue-ray's capacity. This of often achieved with compassing the files on the disk so they only take up the full space once they're installed, but all to often one has to download massive portions of the game before it will work.

 

Before reading your post, I would have thought the other consoles switching (no pun intended) to the memory card/cartridge like format that the Switch uses would have been ludicrous, but it may it actually be the better idea. You're not getting the math wrong, and I in fact think you may have perfectly illustrated the problem and explained so much in the process.

 

Discs are cheep compared to Solid State Storage, even Blu-ray discs, so selling games on them are cheep, so that's really the only way to keep selling hard copies of games at the price the retail customers would buy them at. As you said, Sony own the patent for Blu-ray, so that's another reason they would want games to be sold on Blu-ray. However, nothing is cheaper to publish games than through digital distribution, and that's why game publishers push it as hard as they do. Solid State Storage is comparatively expensive, so no wonder the other console manufacturers shun it and that also goes toward explaining the cost of switch games.

 

Thank you @The Blackangel. Whether you meant it or not, you've really opened my eyes to something. 

[Empire]

I have a feeling that if the rumors of NX games being both console and handheld playable are true then we'll see a return to cartridges. Discs don't really work in a handheld environment and the cost can't be that much higher than discs considering that new Wii U games (on disc) are $60 while new 3DS games (on cartridge) are $40. They even make a profit selling cartridges for $20 with the Selects line. Perhaps most importantly, you can save data directly to cartridges, so you can pop that game out of your console and into your handheld and immediately go back to the same save.

[m76]

I love the idea of cartridges, it is the classical gaming system feel, although I never owned a system that had games on a cartridge. The closest thing to that was the C64 which you could expand the capabilities of with cartridges. Plugging those in was a very visceral and satisfying feeling.

With how big games are becoming I could see cartridges making a comeback for the next gen. Games could come on drives that directly plug into the system and don't even need any type of installation. Of course this would make games more expensive.

[Crazycrab]

To be honest I don't think it's particularly relevant.  I don't see discs or cartridges having a future.  I'm the next 5 to 10 years it's going to be all digital downloads and cloud streaming.

[The Blackangel]

6 hours ago, Crazycrab said:

To be honest I don't think it's particularly relevant.  I don't see discs or cartridges having a future.  I'm the next 5 to 10 years it's going to be all digital downloads and cloud streaming.

You're most likely right. Hell even now it's starting to turn that direction. You can go to a game store like Gamestop, buy a game there, and there's only a digital code in the box and not a physical copy of the game. For example, I bought Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger for my Switch at Gamestop and all that was in the box was a digital code with instructions on how to download it.

So physical game media will definitely be phased out at some point within the next decade. It's just natural evolution. It's cheaper for the developers because they won't have to make physical games. And in that, they can still sell their games at the same price as they would if they were still making physical games.

[Heatman]

On 7/12/2021 at 1:06 PM, Crazycrab said:

To be honest I don't think it's particularly relevant.  I don't see discs or cartridges having a future.  I'm the next 5 to 10 years it's going to be all digital downloads and cloud streaming.

With the rate at which technological advancement is going right now even in the gaming industry, I believe it won't be that long and disc/cartilage would be a thing of the past.