GBN Gamescast - 03 - Can the Nintendo NX Succeed Without a Disc Drive?

On this week's GBN Gamescast, Courtney and Lou discussed this week’s biggest gaming news like a possible Shovel Knight amiibo, September’s PlayStation Plus and Games with Gold lineups, CliffyB’s new game LawBreakers, and Nintendo filing a patent for a console without a disc drive!

[FallenAngel1984]

Their consoles are barely successful with a disc drive, they'd perform even worse without one

[wheresmymonkey]

Really, last time I checked their most successful piece of hardware atm don't have disc drives. If this was the successor to the 3DS, people wouldn't be pissing and maoning about a lack of disc drive. Nintendo could be going digital only or have decided to use memory cards on a home console. The price of flash memory has plumetted especially for their needs. you can buy a 32gb micro SD for a fiver now.

So its really not beyond the realms of possibility that they're going to drop discs for a faster, more robust solution.

That,or the console is going digital only. Something both the X1 and PS4 could already conceivably do in future hardware revisions since no game on either machine actually streams from the disc. They just contain an install file and run from the HDD. The disc is literally in the drive to make sure you own a copy and as an alternative to waiting for a download.

Seriously i don't see what the problem is. PC has been digital only for the best part of a decade. mobile has always been digital only. it's the way the industry is heading, and it's the only way that AAA could possibly continue to be even remotely sustainable.

[marloc_x]

The music industry has done alright digitally, (do miss the 8-track format though) 😏

..disk media is certainly on the wane.

[MSBAUSTX]

Lol whatever dude. Over 100 million Wiis sold, over 50 million sold for virtually ever hand held. Yeah Ninty has the largest stock pile of cash because their consoles don't sell. Shut up troll!

[3-4-5]

It's ok their name is "fallenangel". They obviously think they are cool by being "dark" and "evil" and trolling.

It's pathetic at best.

[FallenAngel1984]

Last time I checked I was talking about consoles, so I don't see why you're bringing handhelds into the discussion when they are two seperate markets

[just-joe]

Patents are filed all the time, this means nothing.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Precisely.
And even if they don't use disks, the patent mentioned SD Cards.
Considering all the space that can be on one of those, Nintendo could make a killing by using cheap high-capacity SD cards for their physical media.

But again, no evidence at all that the patent was for the NX.

[MrBrofist]

Can we wait for actual conformation from Nintendo first?

This is one of the reasons Nintendo has PR problems.
Spreading miss information and confusing people just to get hits. These journalist these days...

Nobody knows jack about the NX at this point so stop pretending that you do