now that you put it that way the ds cards the best since they are still cartridges and cd really do break to easly.

Nice thread!  I had never considered this before, but it's a great idea!  The cost of making them couldn't be that much different could it?  Plus it would probably help the overheating problems many of the new systems have faced, not to mention the noise.  Those old consoles were almost completely silent when turned on, my xbox sound like an air conditioner or something!  How do we get someone to consider this?

I think that it is just a personal preference as to whether you want a cartridge or not. Everything is going digital. I think that the wisest thing would be to put the games on SD cards, because it is simply more practical than a Giant cartridge or an easily scratched CD. Eventually though, the concept of a physical storage for games and media will be a thing of the past because in the name of efficiency, everything will eventually be downloaded rather than purchased in a store. Some people might say that it wouldn't be a good thing to do this, but most of those people upon questioning will only come up with a reason like, "it just looks cool" or "it's tradition!" or "its just plain better" without any real reason. Games and all other forms of media will all be downloaded rather than used in cartridges or CDs in the future when computers and systems are high tech enough that the standard for downloading movies and games will be met on all consoles and computers even if they are old. But I think that for people without Internet, a simple solution would be to carry a flash-drive or external hard drive or what ever new computer storage software is available at the time around so if you don't have Internet, then you can go download what ever the thing is in either a store, or more likely an automated machine that has all of the available media for download and you just put your drive into the machine and pay, then download whatever it is you are looking for. No more collectors boxes, or physical things, but it sure is efficient.

I'm rather neutral, as both sides of the argument got various valid points. While the traditional cartridge is faster, sturdier, and more reliable...the fact is they are incapable of reading like a disk would, and they costs more to manufacture en masse. I love the legend of dragoon, for my PS1, but two of the disks are damaged so a certain part if the game will not read properly. In contrast, I've acquired an old NES recently, and without replacing any parts was able to repair it and the game by hand, for free due to nothing major being shattered.

Perhaps we should go with the USB format (or that styling), as some people suggested. I got a thumbstick that I bought for about 10-15 dollars, it is fairly solid, holds 8gb of memory, and is extremely compact. If we can use the USB drives effectively, we got all the advantages of cartridges, yet the memory of Blu-Rays. If necessary we could make them a bit bigger, but we could easily make the consoles smaller. If we can make the consoles smaller by using the USB sticks, we are saving materials that way as well.

I'm rather neutral, as both sides of the argument got various valid points. While the traditional cartridge is faster, sturdier, and more reliable...the fact is they are incapable of reading like a disk would, and they costs more to manufacture en masse. I love the legend of dragoon, for my PS1, but two of the disks are damaged so a certain part if the game will not read properly. In contrast, I've acquired an old NES recently, and without replacing any parts was able to repair it and the game by hand, for free due to nothing major being shattered.

Perhaps we should go with the USB format (or that styling), as some people suggested. I got a thumbstick that I bought for about 10-15 dollars, it is fairly solid, holds 8gb of memory, and is extremely compact. If we can use the USB drives effectively, we got all the advantages of cartridges, yet the memory of Blu-Rays. If necessary we could make them a bit bigger, but we could easily make the consoles smaller. If we can make the consoles smaller by using the USB sticks, we are saving materials that way as well. 

EDIT: actually, usb based games could render the concept of consoles obsolete as it can be plugged right into the computer, and the controllers would simply be sold...this of course would cause problems as it would be very easy to emulate something held on a USB drive...

DeltaEdge : Yeah, you just said what I would've brought up (), about physical media (cartridges, CDs, etc.) eventually becoming a thing of the past. In an age when everything is on Virtual Console, even current-gen stuff.


For now, the best we have (as of said physical media), excluding digital downloads that will eventually rule gaming, are DS (and 3DS) cartridges; scratch-resistant blu-ray discs; and SD cards (er, that's part of the DD . . . erm, takeover I guess).



One more thing I wanna mention: I imagine DDs (both present and future) have heavily encrypted copy protection that will really keep pirates and hackers OUT. Like a zombie safe house.

AnthrozilWarroir3 : Yeah, the digital downloads will probably all have that DRM crap like certain CDs and albums had. Inconvenient for the customers but great for the companies. If these restrictions were placed on the media, then it would be much more difficulty to pirate it since all of it would be equipped with that DRM crap. If you can't get the game without the DRM then you have no freedom with the game except playing it. So that means pirating it becomes virtually impossible.

DOWN WITH DISCS!!!!

Really though, the best years of my gaming were spent on that Nintendo 64. I didn't want to touch the slow station with it's ez break discs and endless load times that put me to sleep while trying to play a game. I always felt cartridge to disc was a downgrade and we really need our carts back!