Damians rant - Disc Format Or Cartridge Based

In 2013, video games are in the stages of next-gen. All current generation video game consoles use disc-based formats (Xbox/PS3 & Wii). With the first next-generation console, the WiiU, being disc format and using DVD Nine as that format I would say they are using last gen’s technology. With Xbox/PlayStation next-generation consoles using possibly both Blu-Ray as their disc format, they are truly next gen and ahead of the game.

With these next-generation consoles using.....

[blumatt]

I approved for ya, Damian. Good article btw. The problem with flash storage is price. It's cost prohibitive at the moment.

[dedicatedtogamers]

The 3DS and PSVita both use physical carts. And, the price of those games are typically $30-$40. Add an extra $20 for a console cartridge (bringing it up to the normal price of $60) would allow for larger capacity.

Plus, Cartidges with flash storage have a lot of advantages:

- save files right on the cart
- patches, DLC, etc downloaded right to the cart
- significantly faster load times

And MOST importantly:

- hardware tweaks

What I mean is, "back in the day", game developers were able to include chips and enhancements inside of the cartridge that allowed the game to go beyond what the console would normally be able to handle. Starfox on the SNES would be an example. Metal Gear (with its enhanced sound chip) would be another example. It would be nice if you could have a game like, Crysis 4 on future consoles on a cartridge. Let's say future consoles don't have QUITE enough RAM for Crytek to push the game further. Okay, well just throw a bit into the cartridge itself and you're good to go.

[wishingW3L]

you're forgetting that development costs is much more lower on handhelds compared to consoles. You don't have to look further than "SDD vs HDD" to see how much more games would cost if they were cartridges... $140 for a 128GB SDD vs $160 for a 1TB HDD.

A disc only costs like 3-5 cents to a publisher while a cartridge would be like $3-5. The difference is huge. Easily games would cost like $80-100 on a cartridge.

[EddieNX]

This article is a fail , How is the Wiiu using Last gen DVD technology ? It's using Panasonic Propietary Blu ray based 25GB single layer Optical discs and can Have 50GB discs and even go up to quad layered discs.

The wiiu's disc drive is faster than the PS3's also.

Last gen tech that is better than the ps3's blu ray drive ?

I know the Ps3 can have 25/50GB discs , But So can the wiiu and it has a faster reading speed, so by default it's better. The wiiu discs even look EXACTLY like a blu ray when you shine them in light. They're blue.

Only problem is the wiiu doesn't read blu ray films...

But yeh , BS article , the Wiiu's disc drive is better than Ps3's and way way way better than 360's and wii's.

[Sanquine90]

Jeeh the wii U has a better blue ray than a 6 year old console? Big suprise.. Sorry i do not want to troll.

[doogiebear]

Who cares what Wii U does. What will it matter when REAL next gen starts.

[millzy102]

this article is bull shit, I stoped reading after he said Wii u uses DVD 9 which is not the case DVD 9 only goes up to 9 gig (dual layer) it uses proprietary disc format simalar to bluray at 25gigs, now i do have a Wii u but I'm not a nintedo fanboy as I have other consoles but if he can't get simple facts right then he hasn't got my time, he also says that DVD 9 is last gen tech then brings up flash storage which has been around for ages, so is that not last gen tech aswell. people are so stupid it annoys me.

[ElectricKaibutsu]

Right? Where did he hear the Wii U uses DVD 9? I never even heard that as a rumor. It was always 25gb blu-ray based discs. Strange mistake...

Edit: Also, reading more into the article, the disc drive does not generate that much heat. It's the gpu, cpu, and ram you have to worry about.

Edit 2: About the article itself, I don't know exactly why consoles don't use cartridges now that their storage space has caught up with discs. I'm assuming it's cost. Printing a disc is very cheap. The DS and Vita uses discs because, as hand helds, load times and low power consumption are important and cartridges help alleviate both those problems. Also a handheld with a disc could be bad because moving a disc drive while a disc is spinning could damage the drive or disc, as people with the early model 360 can attest. I'm aware the original PSP used umds, I own one, but Sony has since made the switch to cartridges.

[ApexHell]

yup wii u uses proprietry rounded edge 25GB discs based on blu-ray.

[EddieNX]

The wiiu can Read up to quad layer discs aswell 128GB or what ever that is. The ps3 can read a maximum of 50GB per disc.

AQnd yes , the Wiiu ofcourse can Have 50GB dual layered dics.

This article is misinformed and pathetic.

The wiiu's basically has Blu ray (without the films) and is significantly faster than the Ps3's Blu ray drive.

Fail article is fail , Spreading anti Nintendo BS as usual. Pathetic.

[Sano64]

I stopped reading when he said the disk lasers are what's causing the systems to over heat

[chestnut1122]

Despite With the crisis we are all experiencing today., All of them are overpriced., One of the main reason why some of the console and handheld's sales decreased, .,

[Honest_gamer]

would be better if games where released on an SSD that just slotted into the machine :/ bye bye loading times

[sway_z]

A return to cartridge based media or SSD and pay ridiculously high prices for games, like $70 - $100 per game?

.....No thanks!

This article > another completely pointless waste of net space.

[ElectricKaibutsu]

I believe Star Fox 64 was $70 when I bought it at launch. Which is what, $100 in today's dollars? Good times...

[sway_z]

Just in response to the simple soul that disagrees....

The Games Industry as we know it would crumble...because a lot of folks would be priced out....and this is why the industry shouldn't completely do away with the used game market either - an amicable/fair solution needs to be found.

I have read/heard much rhetoric about gaming being a luxury that if you cannot afford it, find an affordable hobby.

...My answer to this selfish group of elitists is that this particular industry is reliant on 'Mass Market' penetration to be economically viable.

Guess what?

Mass Market means 'Everyone' ...you, me and the low income person/family that lives nearby or on your street!

...and if I can save $20 - $30 on each game, I am sure I can live with disc loading times as opposed to the instant nature of the expensive Cartridge/SSD format.

[r21]

Thats alot of yes. Article wasnt that much of a read :L

[kingPoS]

Look no further than the NeoGeo of old. Those 'carts' were not small in size... or price.

[Nevers0ft]

I pretty much dismissed the article at the opening paragraph with the Wii U using DVD9 claim... Hogwash. As many above have stated, Wii U uses a proprietary Bluray-based format so the guy writing the article clearly didn't do much research before banging his claws on the keyboard.

But that's not the only uninformed part of the article. The author seems to think that ROM and Flash Memory are interchangeable. Carts of old were on ROM, hence why they loaded near instantly (helped obviously by the tiny size of games). Flash Memory isn't anywhere near as fast modern ROM - hence the loading screens on large mobile games. And the cost of several gigs of ROM in a cartridge would push the games into Neo Geo territory!

Other than a gain in durability there's not really any advantage to using cartridges for massive games due to the speed of cost effective Flash Memory. Now if we could get rid of those pesky loading screens with some future technology that doesn't cost the earth, count me in!

[R2K]

It's generally harder to pirate cartridge games. That alone means that it's going to be seriously considered by console manufacturers.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest benefits of cartridge media - the short load times - seems to have been abandoned. The flash memory used in Vita game cards and, to a lesser extent, 3DS game cards is pretty low class. It's less of an issue on the 3DS for whatever reason, but I haven't met a Vita owner that didn't complain about the load times.

Either way, it'd just be a stopgap measure until somebody takes the plunge and foregoes physical games entirely in favor of digital distribution. Because of the cost and the current pace of technology, I think they'd stick with optical storage this round because it's not worth investing all that R&D and reducing revenues to support something that will probably be abandoned five years from now.

[rainslacker]

Physical memory formats are subject to wild fluctuations in price. Even with memory being cheaper now, it only takes one natural disaster for prices to skyrocket.

Generally static memory formats are fine for smaller games, such as Vita, 3DS, etc, as the smaller chips aren't as subject to those fluctuations.

However, disc based prices constantly go down every year. There is enough redundancy and competition in the pressed disc manufacturer market to keep the prices low. In addition, Blu-Ray is capable of supporting various discs sizes, 25, 50, 100, 200(theoretically). This means that they're much more scalable to the needs of the individual game.

In addition, next gen machines are going to be media centers. One primary focus we can be almost assured of for the next gen is going to be media playback. As such it would make a lot more market sense to include a disc playback device(Blu-Ray player). Since it's there, there is no reason for them to go to cartridges, and it would only cost more for them to make it use both.

Also, the author seemed to imply that the lasers create a lot of heat. Which is just untrue. The systems themselves will still run hot due to the chips being used, and there's no cheap way around that. They can wear out, or go bad, but I don't think that issue is as prevalent as it was in the PS1/PS2 days, as the technology is exponentially better now.

The only real advantage to cartridges is load times. And they can be exponentially better than the best optical reader. However, with the publisher focusing more on profitability, it's very hard to see them moving to the more expensive medium, particularly when they would much rather push digital sales.