Will they ever go back to carts?

**homerhomer** · 03-06-2011, 07:19 PM

This would be like asking for older Music mediums to come back. In some ways they have. Today I went into a Record/Vinyl only store and and it was hoping. Most of this music could have been bought off iTunes or Amazon in digital format for the same price if not cheaper.

I have recently gotten back into Vinyl because I like the Artwork along with the music. I recently bought a used copy of "Kool And The Gang" on Vinyl and it's awesome. While Listening to it's the best part, the Artwork really makes it something to be proud of owning. For this reason, I like it's better than just a digital copy.

I agree that the industry is moving towards digital distribution buy I have also noticed that newer games that are easily available with online, like Super Mario 1,2,3 Wii collector's edition sold out this last years holiday and where selling on ebay for 3 to 4 time the original price.

Because of this I see more non-digital distributed video games in the future. With fancier packaging.

Besides, can you imagine getting a new video as a child in digital format. Sure you'd be excited but not like unwrapping it and holding it in your hands.

**gameofyou** · 03-06-2011, 08:17 PM

Cartridge is still a great format for handheld systems because:

1) More reliable (no moving parts / motors)
2) Less power consumption (no moving parts / motors)

**kupomogli** · 03-06-2011, 08:25 PM

I don't think we need carts any longer. They're far too expensive in comparison to discs and a lot of developers have been able to develop well enough to where load times aren't an issue any longer.

Take games such as the Uncharted series, Ys Oath in Felghana PSP, Rockstar North games, Dante's Inferno, God of Bore 3, etc. These games have either no load times or incredibly short load times, so short load times are possible on disc based games.

When it comes to the amount of data available. Having less data available will give limitations to force developers to work around it. However, having limitations on a system is a double edged sword. You have some developers that make some pretty amazing games by working around the limitations, but most developers won't put forth the extra effort.

**leatherrebel5150** · 03-06-2011, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by Emperor Megas

I'm talking about games comparable to anything that they would produce on cart. I took the original post to mean that he preferred more 'scaled down' productions that focus more on game play and less on superficial things like high end visuals and superfluous CGI cut scenes. .

Exactly right, to me it seems to be a race for the most realistic game rather than having the best game, it seems to be the modern equivlant of the bit wars.

Originally Posted by homerhomer

"Besides, can you imagine getting a new video as a child in digital format. Sure you'd be excited but not like unwrapping it and holding it in your hands.

This is a big part of it to, the feeling of having something tangible, to hold and be proud to show off might bring the cartridge in limited ways.
for instance, with classic gaming becoming more and more popular, I could see the likes of nintendo reproducing certain collectors carts kind of like playstation does with its "geatest hits" games.

I just see carts have an all around advantage in the durability category. Like I said in the first post I don't have to worry about disc rot or scratching the game because carts are built like tanks. In fact that is what keeps me from collecting any cd based game console because I know that the games themselves are probbaly nearing the end of their life and will start to fail just because of age. So it seems like a waste because most of the games won't be around for my kids to play and enjoy so whats the point.

As for the gaming industry going all digital, I don't really see it happening as fast as it did with the music industry. It comes back to the tangible asset thing, mush more fun to open a game on christmas than it is to get a card saying "hey I bought you a gift catd to download games with.

**Icarus Moonsight** · 03-06-2011, 08:37 PM

The most successful portables never abandoned the format.

Carts have uses today and will also in the future. It used to be that disks were smaller... Well, shoe's on the other foot on that one now. Production cost of flash media is reducing and will continue along with expanding the upward bound limit on storage. Solid state will forever be better than optical... The real issue is cost and benefit.

**retroman** · 03-06-2011, 08:52 PM

i agree we my see sd cards or usb drives for future media, and yes sadly downloadable games will most likely end up being the way to go...but i hope not..i like to have a copy in my hand..

**Edmond Dantes** · 03-06-2011, 08:59 PM

The idea of digital-only distribution seems to be a popular idea among internet geeks... but they tend to have a skewered perception with a great deal of tunnel-vision involved (IE they think that because they're so aware of the internet that everyone else is, not realizing they're actually a niche community).

I would say games won't go all-digital for at least fifty years.

**Frankie_Says_Relax** · 03-06-2011, 09:26 PM

Um ... I can not for the life of me wrap my brain around the notion that a game designer somehow gains some higher level of creative ability based solely on lower size limitation of the game media.

Last time I checked, regardless of how large a game cartridge, disc or downloadable file is there is no requirement that a game fill some percentage of that space.

If a game developer wanted to release a game that only takes up 35KB of space on a Blu-Ray disc where a 50GB Blu-Ray is the proprietary format of the system that the game is developed for ... why would that be a problem?

Sure, at that size, the game would probably make for a better downloadable title, but this romanticized concept that games are "better" (or more creatively developed) because they're on a 100KB cartridge isn't much different than saying that music sounded better on 8-Tracks or that food tastes better when its home-cooked. (And yes, I'm well aware that there are people who will argue such things to their graves ... but it still doesn't change the fact that it's ultimately nothing more than a romanticized attachment to a specific media/delivery type.)

Good games are developed by good developers, size limitations of any given storage media are only that - limitations. A good game designer can easily transcend any limitation be that too little space or too much, which I suppose is being perceived here as some sort of limitation.

I don't believe that having near-unlimited resources in terms of space makes any difference when it comes to good games. If a designer wants to make a minimalist product nothing is stopping them.

But, to your address question, interesting to note, Sony's NGP is ditching the UMD and will be releasing games at brick&mortar on Memory Sticks.

**Rev. Link** · 03-06-2011, 11:08 PM

I would love to see the next generation of consoles use some kind of flash media designed to look like a cartridge.

**buzz_n64** · 03-06-2011, 11:17 PM

Originally Posted by Rev. Link

I would love to see the next generation of consoles use some kind of flash media designed to look like a cartridge.

The only way I would see this happening is special edition flash media for a portable system like the 3DS stylized to look somewhat like a GB or NES cart. Either that, or a new system made for retro style games.

**kupomogli** · 03-06-2011, 11:57 PM

Originally Posted by Frankie_Says_Relax

Um ... I can not for the life of me wrap my brain around the notion that a game designer somehow gains some higher level of creative ability based solely on lower size limitation of the game media.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 couldn't have maps that were the same scale of maps on Valkyria Chronicles for PS3, they had to break them into smaller sections, like map A and map B. This isn't anything to do with disc space, but either RAM or the processor couldn't handle it.

While Frankie didn't bring this up, another thing is that games really don't require near as much data as people think they do. You take a look at a game like Crisis Core. Over half the disc space is probably all the FMV that you see every time you turn a corner. The title screen itself is a couple minute FMV, as soon as you start the game there's a few minutes here, then again, and then again shortly after. There are times where the ingame graphics would legitimately require a second disc but usually not really required. Some multidisc PSX games have all the data on a single disc. Go out and swap the Xenogears disc in the middle of the game. You hit a story sequence and it reads it from whatever disc that's inserted, however, if you hit an FMV sequence it will crash.

**jordandavid** · 03-07-2011, 02:05 AM