Could future consoles turn to solid-state media again?

Jason Clement of G4@Syfygames theorizes how the removal of a console's optical drive could signify a return to games using solid state media.

[ChrisW]

Very true, but it won't be a question of SSMs becoming cheaper than discs; that will never happen. It's more of a question of when will SSMs become relevant enough to outweigh the costs?

[3-4-5]

* Cartridges with space for multiple games.

Like the old memory cars, but with full games instead.

Or like what the 3DS/Vita has, but larger.

[Orbilator]

The more we go up in power the quicker we need to fill ram with data, I loved cartridges for that. SSD is maybe the answer but at the moment getting the data processed is what slows down the loading times as can be seen in lots of hdd vs ssd comparisons.
We all know how fast ssd are.

[rcalafactor]

Well they could go to flash drives. Since, flash drives sizes have increased alot. other than that an all digital is still far away because there is still people that either don't have or have poor internet speeds to entitle to drop the physical copy of the game.

[Sarick]

FeRam or ReRAM is a a better and faster, longer life, not only could it be used as dram non-volatile ultrafast storage. The card could be patched, have it's own swap file space (meaning you could use it to augment system ram), and save game storage area.

I always loved the ability to rent barrow a cartridge and the saves being on the device. Now days almost everything is linked to the (LIVE/STEAM/PSN accounts and some games saves are DRM copy protected.

[Locknuts]

I would love to be able to pop in a game and just play it. No installs and short load times. The good old days...

[Sly-Lupin]

Ultimately, this IS the future. At least in North America. Why? Because necessity demands it. As ISPs continue to implement anti-consumer bandwidth caps, and as game sizes bloat ever larger, we get closer and closer to the point where the benefits of digital distribution fail to balance out the problems.

A small SSD card that consumers can take to a retailer to "load" with digital games is something I can easily see coming in the next decade or two. It would also make retailers (like GameStop) more relevant.

Unless the laws change here to favor consumers instead of corporations, this is the kind of thing that will NEED to happen, unless there's a major shift in the industry towards the mobile model.