Should cartridges come back?

I know that cartridges never held that much data back in the old days but with todays amazing small flash memory devices would it be good to bring them back again?

Instant loading times were great back then and nowadays there is nothing more worse than waiting ages for a game to load. I know that a majority of todays games don't really have bad loading times, not like the days of the ZX Spectrum.

Should we have them back or should they just rot in Hell!

All the Best!
ToT

no, they don't hold very much information. compare a cartridge to a blu-ray disc.

bluray disc= 50gb of storage for great graphics and physics etc.

cartridge= about 5mb of storage for poor graphics and weak physics etc.

discs are cheaper to manufacture, hold more information, and are just all around better. going back to cartridges would be stupid to be honest. the should "rot in hell" or in the new mexico desert along with the E.T. cartridges.

Cartridges are awesome. Nearly no load times. The ability to save your games to the cartridge instead of buying stupid memory cards/HDs. But they're expensive. I'm not talking a few quid here:

50GB Blu Ray disc: About £22
64GB Cartridge: About £700

In the long run, discs are much much MUCH cheaper.

In the medium of handhelds, yes. Even though UMD's do ~1.7GB of storage, the loading, disc spinning, and battery drainage sucks. Using flash memory wasn't a viable option at the time.

Cartridges however do not equal flash cards.

Cartridges are done. Returning to them would be a step backward.

For consoles, at least.

Handhelds should probably stick to the cartridge. At least for now.

We use CD's now...
n'uff said.

Oh my god, HELLZ YEA.

They don't store that much information, but they look awesome, you get to blow on it if it doesn't work AND it's obsolete!

How awesome is that!

Cartridges are sweet, but they'd be way more expensive. Sure we can fit a lot of information on things like an SD memory card, but look at the price of the tiny things. Now scale that up to appropriate file size for a game. Expensive.

no they're just dirty rotten expensive plastic thats worthless if you ask me!!!

Cartridges will most likely return with the advent of cheaper holographic storage. It's primitive right now, but once you can fit a few terabytes in a chip the size of your pinky nail - those will be the new "cartridges". And before you say that they could be incredibly easily lost, just think of how great that is for the companies selling the games.

They have, I believe, succeeded storing two or so terabytes on CD-sized media. There was also another project that could store 1TB on a floppy-disc like media.

Umm, no. They are outdated for todays world. All anyone wants now is sleek and stylish which is where the compact disc (cd) comes in. Cartridges take up more space than a cd. And heaven forbid we ever have to WAIT for anything nowadays.

you'd only want cartridges back for nostalgia

Originally Posted by zantdarksage

you'd only want cartridges back for nostalgia

That, and pretty much instant load times, aswell as saving information to the cartridge rather than the console.

But if the game gets glitched or smashed your save data is gone. Saving it to the console or a memory card solves that problem.

Cartriges don't break as easily. But they can't hold onto as much data as discs.
But they will be forever defined as "Classic".
I'd love to see them back, but I doubt it.

The things that the DS uses, technically, aren't cartridges.

Originally Posted by zeldask

"rot in hell" or in the new mexico desert along with the E.T. cartridges.

Do you think I can get away with blaming global warming on the E.T. burial?

Originally Posted by Peacemaker