Could the next gen be disc free?

[crusto]

The Vita is a powerful piece of kit, up there with the PS3 apparently and Sony have chosen to abandon the UMD in favour of cartridges. A good move imo. Is it beyond the realms of possibility then that the next gen consoles could follow suit? Its a given that the PS4 and 720 will be more powerful than the Vita and the games will undoubtedly be bigger. But if Sony are mass producing carts for the Vita it may be viable for them to do so for ps4. And Microsoft have a Choice to make as it is, get in bed with Sony and use Blu Rays, resurrect the HD DVD, or do something new.

It would make for a quieter and more reliable console wouldnt it. I would love to see the disc format ditched if im honest. Ive always preferred carts.

[The Angry Jock]

HD DVD will not be ressurected, far too expensive.

[slacey1070]

I'd be surprised if anyone went with cartridges for the next gem . . .massively expensive costs . . . although as you rightly say, quiet, reliable consoles would be nice!

[Joey]

As compression technology gets better all the time I wouldn't be surprised if home console games came on proprietary cards, like the Vita/3DS, at some point in the future.

[jdanddiet]

getting a feeling of deja vu here....

...wel maybe it is deja vu

[Jonboy1977]

seeing as you can now get 16gb SD cards fo very little, I would suppose that the cost for producing cartridges has dropped dramatically from the 8bit, 16bit era.

The move to CD and DVD was initially because of size limitations and we dont really have that any more.

I would love a return to cartridges, maybe the new ones could be similar to the PC engines Hucards in look and size. I would also like to return to the standard CD cases those cards came in ( never liked DVD boxes, and My Pcengine, Neogeo cd, and Jap saturn games look so much better on a shelf ) or something along the lines of the neo geo pockets little shock boxes.

[Matt_B]

A 16GB SD card can be had for under a tenner, but the unit costs of mass produced optical media are of the order of a few pence. On the whole, I think we'll be getting the latter for quite some time yet.

[pratty]

Discs have already been confirmed for the Wii-U. And I would expect Microsoft and Sony to follow because the preferred alternative for them would surely be downloadable distribution.

While downloadable distribution is still yet to take off in a big way with consumers, it is what developers etc are hoping for, so there seems little point bringing out cards and carts if you only hope to soon do away with those as well. They might as well keep using the cheaper discs until they lure people over to downloads, if they can.

Edit: In the case of the Vita and 3DS using card/carts, well Nintendo always have for their handhelds, with limited scope and demand down downloadable distribution they have to continue. And UMD was just a bit too impractical to continue using for the Vita, again not everyone wants to download their games yet so they had to use something.

[DreamcastRIP]

Please correct me if I'm wrong...

Afaik, PS Vita games are not on cartridges, in the true meaning of the word. They come on flash memory cards... just like Gizmondo games did, albeit that Gizmondo games came on SD cards and PS Vita games are on proprietary memory cards.

Point being, the cost of using flash memory cards is one hell of a lot cheaper than using traditional game cartridges when it comes to larger capacity games (SNK Neo Geo AES/MVS!).

[Mootown]

All it takes is EA to have the balls to release the next Fifa as download only.

[QuantumCrayons]

Afaik, PS Vita games are not on cartridges, in the true meaning of the word. They come on flash memory cards... just like Gizmondo games did, albeit that Gizmondo games came on SD cards and PS Vita games are on proprietary memory cards.

Yeah, but DS games are on the same (I think?) but have become known as "DS cartridges".

[DreamcastRIP]

Afaik, PS Vita games are not on cartridges, in the true meaning of the word. They come on flash memory cards... just like Gizmondo games did, albeit that Gizmondo games came on SD cards and PS Vita games are on proprietary memory cards.

Yeah, but DS games are on the same (I think?) but have become known as "DS cartridges".

A quick Google search reveals DS game cartridges come on 'traditional' cartridges, i.e. ones that use ROM chips as opposed to flash memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Game_Card
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIE7nm4ZKQ

EDIT:
Yep, PSV games do indeed come on flash memory cards - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStatio ... _Vita_card

[Wookiee]

getting a feeling of deja vu here....

...wel maybe it is deja vu

Where's Grusso when you need him eh?

[crusto]

getting a feeling of deja vu here....

...wel maybe it is deja vu

If youre aiming that one at me then yeah you are 100% right . I love the chance to have a nag about how I hate optical media. The main reason I bought the N64 was because it still used carts rather than discs. For me carts and gaming go hand in hand. I would love to see a return to the proper way of console gaming. The tech is there now.

[Jonboy1977]

All it takes is EA to have the balls to release the next Fifa as download only.

As of now, that would be one of the worst business moves in Videogame history.