Will Game Cartridges Make a Comeback?

sk8pmp writes "With the cost of solid state memory going down, will we see the return of the game cartridge? Or will digital distribution reign supreme and transition our entertainment into the cloud? This editorial explores the beginnings of the cartridge vs. disc battle of the '90s and theorizes a second one in the future. 'Imagine if you could marry the vast spaces of discs with the blazing fast speeds of solid state memory. Can you say "no more load times"? You pop the game into the top of the console, so the game is sticking out the top like in ye olden times, and you could see the sweet artwork on the front of the cartridge. The nostalgia is killing me!'"

Comments

They never went out of style

[tepples]

I don't see how cartridges ever went out of style. Nintendo DS games come on cartridges. PSN on PSP downloads games to a Memory Stick PRO Duo. Wii downloads games to SD. And there are even still new NES games coming out, like Sivak's Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril and ProgAce's Bio Force Ape vs. Dur Butter.

Re:Don't blow

[MBGMorden]

Practical experience reigns of theoretical in this case. As 25-35 year old can tell you, you could pull and reseat NES cartridges till the cows came home and they wouldn't work. A blow from the side though (and usually a 2nd cartridge wedged into the unit to hold the loaded one against the contacts tighter) would get it going in a jiffy.

Seems the NES was the only system with this problem though (no doubt due to their goofy front-load spring-loaded design). SNES, Genesis, N64, etc worked every time you tossed a cartridge in.

50gb BR disc : 3$ - 16gb USB key : 30$

[AwaxSlashdot]

Pressing a BluRay disc costs less than 3$ per disc (price for just 1000). Such a disc can hold 25 to 50 GB. A DVD is around 1$ and holds 5 to 9 GB.
A 16GB USB key is at 30$ and 8GB is 15$ on Amazon. I know this is rewritable but a ROM version won't cut its cost by 90%.

So we won't see SSD replacing discs on data heavy console games anytime soon.