Ive heard this rumour previous and by God do I hope it's true. I say this mainly - but not entirely - for the fact I like Nintendo to keep a good distance from what other developers are prompting, keeping Nintendo a breath of fresh air and still EASILY the best developer in the business.

They haven't said anything about a 3DS successor.. Their next console could be a hybrid. .
This a stunt only Nintendo could pull off..

Whoever wrote this article doesn't understand some VERY fundamental things about optical media and why it was adopted.

Micro SD cards hold more space than Blu Ray discs

Nintendo wants to go out of business.

The move to optical media took place at a time when capacity was much greater on disc than on a cartridge. That's not really the case anymore. Cartridges also provide some clear advantages over discs. Without a disc drive, the machine would be quieter and would have one less mechanical component that will eventually fail. Carts are more durable. Personally, I wouldn't mind a cartridge based system, especially if they're not going to allow the console to play DVDs or Blu-rays as has been their tradition.

If true, I'm wondering how much data can be stored on it. If its any thing less than what we have now on Xbox and PS4, that's really disappointing. I hope Nintendo remembers how small the storage was on the N64 carts and the small GC disks.

For those thinking cartridge in the traditional 90s era... would it be better to visualize a thumb drive based or SSD based house in a cartridge housing (I am sure modernized and thinner). The advantages of using this format is through the roof. Access speeds, massive storage space for example come to mind. Disk based media (blu-ray etc) are becoming a thing of the past. I for one welcome this change. Nintendo will be the first out the gate using this new media and I am sure Sony and Microsoft will follow.

https://codespode.files.wor...

My first thought was, "Isn't April Fools over for this year?" But the more I thought about it, the more it makes sense.
Nintendo 64 sticking with carts was a very bad idea, due to the expensive manufacturing costs and lack of storage space (Mario 64 fit entirely within 8MBs!), CD-ROMs were dirt cheap, carts were not. So we have this negative idea about cartridges based on the past, but times have changed, you can get a 64 GB SD card for $20. Nintendo, cutting out the middle man could buy them in bulk for probably $5 each or less. That's more space than a PS4 or Xbox One blu-ray disc, and the read speeds would be extremely fast.

If NX is both a handheld and at-home console, then carts that can be removed and inserted into different systems makes a lot of sense, think of PS Vita and PS TV, go outside, play a Vita game, go home, take out the cart, and put it into your PS TV, quick and seamless.

This would be interesting, and I suspect if Nintendo announces carts for NX, the internet would blow up, mocking Nintendo, despite the fact that it may not actually be a bad thing. People would jump to conclusions that its a bad thing simply because its "out-dated technology" without considering the benefits.

- Costs and storage space no longer an issue.
- Read speeds faster than discs.
- Can't get scratched.
- Works for handhelds and consoles.

Saves money by not having to payout more than they need to and confirms they are about the games not some media player ...

Wonder if 3rd party game will be digitally sold on it ......

Hmm, people object to a media which can provide better speed and make installation obsolete. A cartridge is like plugging in an SSD drive that has a game on it. Media is not an issue when it comes down to play a game unless it is either slowing or speeding up the process.

Why would anyone care? Everyone that desperate for another brplayer? No thanks. Smart thinking NIntendo. I imagine it will be a hell of a time ever breaking such a machine with the intent of piracy. Plus installation times no longer a factor? That is definitely a huge benefit.

Now that's interesting. Definitely wanna see what the NX can do. With all these rumors about it, don't know what it does or doesn't just crazy.

that would be hilarious XD

Blowing on cartridges will finally become a thing again.

This is one way the NX won't be sold at a loss.

This is totally assanine and would only cement how out of touch Nintendo is with the WORLD!

Although i have fond memories of blowing into my nes, snes, n64 cardriges and busting out the cue tips and rubbing alcohal, this would be dumb. Id rather them go full-on digital than this. This is full retard.. And you should never go full re...

It would be for speed.. all games would be on flash memory cartridges super fast loading... compared to shit hdd.

Unless Nintendo will allow 3rd parties to use this media for pennies on the dollar I cannot see how this would be successful in the home console market. Makes perfect sense for the handheld part of NX (assuming there is one) because developers are already used to the format for portable gaming.

I don't know hoe much developers have to pay for optical discs but I would think it would be considerably cheaper than cartridges even though the prices are far less expensive then back in the N64 days.

I would rather have carts instead of discs because I'm sick of loading times in games with consoles that are SUPPOSED to be technically superior (i.e. PS4 and XB1,) however I just don't think that NX will be using carts exclusively. If NX is two parts than the portable will use carts, the home terminal optical discs.

Or, you may be able to just stream the game from the home terminal to the portable eliminating the need for media at all. You can start playing at home, stream it to the portable and keep playing, then come back home and finish playing on the home terminal seamlessly. To me that sounds like the "new concept" Nintendo keeps taking about.

However, that makes too much sense so I'm not expecting that.

I already heard this rumor ages ago, it sounds good but it won't be as cheap as a disc.

N64 games new costed alot.

This would be cool if true. but i just want a system with a generation defining 3D Mario title that looks and plays so awesome that it attracts the hardcore nintendo fans who bought an N64.

Please. NEXT article!
This is a pile of bullsh*t

oh god, i hope they don't...

Discs are cheaper, which is a huge advantage for third parties. Unless Nintendo wants to alienate those companies and repeat another N64, they'll need to continue using disc formats

I think they will use SD cards, like the 3DS. I think it would be a good move, since they wouldn't need use to pay extra money for the disc drive on the console.

Games on flash drives would be awesome IMO. Get rid of moving mechanical parts.

Nintendo never learn. Can't see 3rd party devs willing to develop for 2 totally different proprietary formats tbh. Yet again that would be another ninty console without 3rd party support and if true it would be tantamount to suicide. Even Nintendo aren't that pig headed.

Or are they...

Manufacturing alone would be prohibitively expensive...

If they moved to cartridges, the need for hard drive installations from physical media would be eliminated.

I see all these comments about how "retarded" or "asinine" this idea is and its like you people still think its the year 2000. Both optical media and magnetic storage (hard drives) are on their way out when it comes to consumer devices. The PS Vita, the 3DS, smartphones, and tablets... they dont use either one. And its common for PCs to have solid state storage and no DVD drive. Small game cards for the NX would make for much, much faster load times, it would reduce the cost of the console itself and make it more reliable (no laser failures, accidental scratching etc).The 3DS is already a few years old and those cards hold up to 8GB. Sure, flash memory isn't so cheap that its cheaper than a bluray, but the price is coming down and I'm guessing that read-only chips are even cheaper already and it would save the space on your console that you might have used to install/download the game. This plus consider that a lot of people are moving towards digital distribution anyways, so why put a big, loud optical drive in your console? And someone remarked about 3rd parties not wanting to support a different format... the 3rd parties don't actually manufacturer the discs/cards but you better believe they like the idea of quick load times.

A high capacity bluray disc is less than a dollar. I highly doubt a high capacity 25Gb cartridge ( let's assume SD cards for now ) can beat that.

-_-

As someone who grew up with cartridges, im excited about another cartridge based system. With so much digital distribution now discs are nothing but a medium that allows you to download a game. The only reason you need the disc is to authenticate your downloaded game everytime you play it. Disc drives are the most expensive thing in a console and there is a huge risk of failures. Plus load times and download times suck and were never an issue until the Playstation era. What we have come to accept in this gaming era is madness. Crazy load and dl times, unfinished games being sold as full pricefd titles, disc licensing that can be rendered useless with a kill switch. Sad. Those who never got to experience cartridges have no idea how much better they can be.

* Cartridges have faster load times. They work fine for 3DS/Vita games.....just scale them up in size for a console sized game and they would work fine.

* I'd love to see cartridges make a comeback.

Search my post history....

Solid state memory. Like SSD drives or giant SD cards. It's the future.

Say the console was cartridge based. What is the cost difference between a 32 gb cartridge and a 50 gb blue ray disc?

I can't believe people are actually buying into this lol, NX is not ditching discs for cartridges that would be stupid smh. This is Nintendo's last chance as a console maker they wouldn't drop the ball like that. Its clearly that Nintendo is making anither handheld, a powerful one at that. I read an article a while back that they were working on both a console and a handheld that's suppose to come out at different times and they'll both work together just like the vita and the ps4 does.
Whats the point of having a powerful console that is limited to cartdridges? The games wouldn't be able to fit on them, most games are 25gigs and up a cardtidge can't even hold a fraction of that smh.

it's not impossible at all. Nintendo going with a cartridge slot over a blu laser disc drive would make a lot of sense. it would decrease the cost of the NX, increase the performance, & lower the cost of the system as a whole. as a matter of fact, if you built the exact same system with the same cpu, gpu, & ram memory as the NX, but with a optical disc drive instead, it would be a weaker system & cost more.

cartridges are a better technology than optical disc ( cds, dvds, blu rays}, because of the potential read speed advantage over HDD. The durability of cartridges over a long period of time. the cartridge it's self is a memory card, so you don't have to take your console to a friends house, or anywhere. the reason video game publishers & console manufacturers switched to cds over cartridges was the higher capacity & lower price of the cd format compared to the cartridge format, faster manufacturing, & cheaper distribution, all leading to decreasing the retail price of video games.

over the years the capacity problem has been solved. manufacture speed is probably better, &
solid state memory is getting cheaper & cheaper by the year.

Carts will NEVER be more cost effective than Disks, FACT

Cartridges would be awesome! Maybe you won't have to install the game. It sucks to have to install every game you buy. The system will be super quiet. More energy efficient.

Well as long as it gets developers on board I'm ok with this. ;)

Nintendo No Ditch Mario its still good, not good like Old game but i like:)

Thats what i was thinking would happen

Whatever the NX turns out to be, right now I am really fascinated. I feel like there is a lot of potential here and I am not opposed to the idea of going back to cartridges at all. I enjoy the fact that I can save to my cartridge on the New 3DS. I am really curious to see what Nintendo has up their sleeves with the NX.

The idea of cartridge can be good...but that meen people wont be able to use the NX as a bluray player.....I know bd player are cheap these days but its still a feature less.

This doesn't make any sense, the cheapest flash memory is much more expensive than a Blu-ray disc. Of course, if the NX is a portable device of some kind then that is a different story. The only handheld ever to use optical media was the PSP and it was really cool in theory but not really that great in practice due to load times and the drain on battery life.

Well considering NONE of their main systems ever played multi media disc like dvd's and blu rays (minus that funky gamecube that looks like a jukebox) it doesn't even matter. I personally would prefer they went down the blu ray street but whatever, they have bigger fish to fry

I think thats a great ideal!

This is quite intriguing and I kind of hope it to be true. It would make it so that the games have read speeds that are insane, a lot like an ssd. And we all know how amazing those are. Actually no most people don't and that's precisely why they're scared of going "back" to cartridges, when in reality no moving parts is the future, cards/cartridges being included.

It's a commendable choice made by Nintendo. No matter how often I feel they slip on me, I gotta love them and support them

going back in time to N64 days

I don't think many people realise that read only solid state storage is much much cheaper than read and write, so comparing current SD card prices is a bit unfair.

SD card can't be considered cartridges.

This makes perfect sense in 2016/17.

"(The new cards have reportedly got a capacity of 32GB)"
So if a 3rd party developer releases a game on the PS4 & Xbox One with data over 32 GB... that means they are gonna have to dumb it down for the NX.

Yes Nintendo cartridges are way better than discs, loading times are almost nonexistent, way way faster read speed and no annoying disk drive sound.

It does make sense as some others have said, like on PC solid state storage is replacing mechanical HDD's and has been for years now, much faster and quiet due to no moving parts. The N64 was always praised for having little/no loading times compared to the PS1.

Even with the new 32nm chips from this specific company using a reported 32G capacity, that is more space than a single layer Blu-ray disc, it is also never stated that this specific chipset is the one Nintendo intends to use, if they are even going down this path. But considering there are ROM chips that can hold 64G, 128G even 512G (tho I wouldn't at all expect Nintendo to use the high capacity cards due to costing to consumer) it's not at all "ridiculous" or "retard" in notion to consider using these for a new console. Not only do you get the storage space of a Blu-ray disc (or higher depending on size used, not including the XL Blu-ray as neither the PS4 or One is using them yet) but you get near instant load times, no installation of game media required, instant access to game code and because of this the system memory which is usually used for fetching and storing code for use is freed up for other processes, and finally you have the fact that a cartridge is far more resistant to wear/tear and general rough treatment, droppages etc.

How is it then that current high capacity cards and any of the pros that go with using them are a bad move as far as it being considered as a format for a new console? Especially one that is rumored to possibly be a hybrid or connect to/share content with a handheld.

ok, what about backwards compatibility if true?

Handheld??

What they meant is it will have the small flash cards like the 3DS, not those big plastic cartridges like the N64 used to have. I think it's a great idea.

Cartridges are super cheap yes!
/$

yeah, because carts worked out so well for the N64.

"Chicken might evolve to have teeth"...

If they do this, then I guess backward compatibility with Wii U discs won't happen . I never purchased the Wii U, but was going to possibly get the NX so I could also play some Wii U games.

That would be awesome! No loads none of that disc protection bullshit and installing.

WTH Ninty this better not be true. C'mon Nintendo didn't you learn from the fact you got your butt kicked against Sony with the PS1 using discs whilst the N64 used cartridges the cost $10 a cart to manufacture. Not to mention didn't you learn from what happened with N64. Get with the times Nintendo.

It's not plausible, because a CD costs pennies to make, and a cartridge is something like 30$ or so to make. The profit margins are destroyed. Maybe if they have a flashable cartridge that they use for on the go gaming

Condisering cartridges read data faster then blu-ray I'm not surprised plus they don't come as big as the ones in the snes days think 3ds carts with 32GB/64GB...

And not be able to play a blu ray or a dvd even? This sounds like an awful idea.

I don't ever buy my cpnsoles for that reason, but the fact that I can put a disc in is definitely a plus.

certainly would limit the need for a hard drive in the system.