Will Cartridge-Based Games Experience a Resurgence in Popularity?

[DemonDragonJ]

When video games consoles were originally invented, they used ROM cartridges as the media for their games, since disks (both magnetic and optical) were too expensive and impractical at that time. ROM cartridges enjoyed the benefit of having near-instant data access due to not having any moving parts, but, as optical discs improved in capacity and became less expensive, they displaced ROM cartridges in popularity, despite the fact that they take a longer duration to load their data (apparently, players prefer superior graphics over superior loading times), to the point where only Nintendo still uses cartridges, and only in their handheld systems.

However, in recent years, solid-state storage has improved tremendously in terms of capacity and affordability, most notably with the rise of flash memory, which is easy to adapt into nearly any physical form and is usually no more expensive than $1 per gigabyte, which is typically a good bargain; while magnetic hard drives can be as inexpensive as $0.10 per gigabyte, many people do find that the faster access times and smaller form factor of flash media are often worth the higher monetary cost.

Therefore, I wonder if cartridge-based video games may experience a resurgence in popularity, since solid-state storage is now very affordable. Perhaps a game could use cartridges that contained ROM memory for speed of access and flash memory for its large capacity? While it seems that both the upcoming Playstation 4 and XBox One shall continue to use optical discs, as have their predecessors, but I do believe that this may be a great opportunity for video game consoles to return to using solid-state memory, now that it has greatly improved.

What does everyone else have to say on this subject? Is it possible that cartridge-based video games may become popular again?

[Stonerboy779]

I think everything will move to Digital Downloads and that all physical media will disappear.

[d_stilgar]

In general I see all computing moving away from moving parts, so I guess if video game consoles still exist in another twenty years, the price of flash memory may get cheap enough to maybe compete with optical discs . . . maybe.

However, I'm with stonerboy on this one. I hate buying physical media anymore. As it is even blu-ray discs will eventually become unplayable in a player because most players get firmware updates and the format of the discs themselves have gone through a number of iterations making many of them unplayable on older players. We've never seen this before with any other format. VHS just works. DVD just works, and will in 100 years. Blu-rays have no guarantee.

Now we get to consoles. There's a huge attack on used game sales right now.

All of this is just a long way of saying we don't anything anymore and it's kinda sucky. It's all just a stronger and stronger argument in favor of piracy, and I'm the sort of person who really wants to support the content I consume, whether or not it's my favorite. If I used it that means someone needs to be compensated for it.

So, yeah, I'm with stonerboy. All things combined we are moving to digital distribution. Hopefully consumers can get the right to re-sell back soon as well.

[xr4man]

i personally think everything is going to digital download as well. but i hate the fact that we can't resell our games. i hate the idea that what i pay my hard earned money for isn't mine. if it's not mine, i shouldn't have to pay for it. it should be loaned out to me like a library if i don't own it.

[Twigsoffury]

If you bought something, and you can't sell it again to someone else.

well then you never bought it, you borrowed it for 60$

*gets back onto pirate ship, and sets sail for Steam OS*