Topic: Wii Lite - a Hypothesis

[Chozo Ghost]

The next standard for display beyond HD will probably be 3D.

[Stratos]

The next standard for display beyond HD will probably be 3D.

I'm sure it will start in a 'low quality' 3D and over time it will become higher quality .

[Deguello]

I should state that the reason I'm 100% positive that Nintendo will be using "carts" for their next console (be they holographic data cards or ­über SD Cards) is because of this whole "disruption" kick Nintendo's been on.  They've successfully steered this generation to be more about interface than more powerful hardware, for example.

So why not attempt to change the values of the next gen by making the game's media more about access speed and reliability than capacity?  It's something nobody is really thinking about right now.  Everybody's all starry eyed about a 75 GB Triple Layered Blu-Ray Disc or some kind of 2 TB Hard Drive for all this talk of future-proof Digital Distribution, when nobody wants to talk about the DREs and the scratched disks and the drive failures and the "you rent this from our servers, you don't actually own it" issues that go with them.  I can't be the only guy that sees the DS's loading times and compares them to MGS4's 8 minute "installs" and wonder why the hell we're getting cheated on this front just because the Playstation won the Console War more than a decade ago.  I can't be the only guy who's had 2 PS1's break, had a PS2 break, and has had several computer failures, but also had an NES that still works, an SNES that still works, an N64 that still works, and every permutation of gameboy and DS work fine to this day, and noticed that the problems are with moving parts, spinning motors, and easily damaged media.

End the Disc!  Carts now!  Carts forever!

[Ian Sane]

Although Deg and I have our differences I march alongside him in the crusade for carts!

I see optical discs as a necessary evil.  The size difference was too great to ignore, despite the load times and reliability issues.  But now we don't have to put up with that evil anymore.  Much like how there is realisitically a cap on how far you can take graphics before the amount of work you put into them isn't cost effective, there is also a cap on space.  You can only make a game so big.  So if cartridges are at a point where they're big enough and cheap enough to offset any real optical disc advantage to use anything else would be idiotic.  In a world where cost isn't an issue cartridges are better than discs in every way.

If anything this should be cause for celebration.  We're at the point where we can be free from scratched discs and loading screens!

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

That would be grand.

My bookshelves are running out of space for DVD cases.

[Stratos]

I love the feel of cartridges. Plus then maybe we could go back to the old cardboard game boxes.

[Ian Sane]

Plus then maybe we could go back to the old cardboard game boxes.

This has got to be the first time in the history of the universe that someone has longed for the days of cardboard videogame boxes.  Fucking things get wrecked or thrown out.  If you keep them you can't really store the game in them so you just have these empty boxes laying around.  It sucks for used game purchases since finding a complete copy is rare, which is hardly even an issue with cases.

DS uses cases so any other cartridge console from now on better use them.  I HATE cardboard boxes!

[ThomasO]

I do not use any of my cases for storing games; I bought a 16 DS card case and a large CD wallet for my Wii games, so they're all easy to carry around. I keep all my cases in storage if I ever want to sell anything.

[Chozo Ghost]

You guys are all wrong. Games should not be on either carts nor on discs, but instead on cardboard cards like they  were with the GBA E-Reader device. I just wonder how much space on a cardboard card it would take in order to hold enough bar codes for a typical current gen game.... On the E-Reader all that was done were simple NES games where the sizes are measured in mere Kilobytes and not megabytes or even gigabytes like they are today.

[Mop it up]

Games coming in cardboard boxes were just publishers being cheap because of how much cartridges cost. But flash cards are cheaper that what those old cartridges cost so there’s no reason to cheap out this time. DS games come in cases so I image there’d be a huge backlash if the next Nintendo system’s games didn’t as well.

The only durability issue with cartridges/cards is that the connecters get worn out through repeated use of insertion and removal. Though this becomes less of a problem when the connectors become smaller; that’s why N64 games work better than NES games and why Game Boy games are still going strong. So with how small the cards are then maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.

[Stratos]

Maybe it's just me then on the box thing. When I was young I kept them all on my shelf and I would actually keep the games in the cardoard boxes.

For the DS I just have a couple of the DS game cases that I cram all of my DS games in. I keep the most commonly played ones together so I can just grab that one if I'm going somewhere.

[Mop it up]

Maybe it's just me then on the box thing. When I was young I kept them all on my shelf and I would actually keep the games in the cardoard boxes.

You can still do that if the cases are still DVD-sized like I think they would be. They'd still have the artwork on them and everything, and you wouldn't have to worry about them getting worn out through use, damaged by a clumsy person, or faded by sunlight.

[Stratos]

Yeah, I think it's just my nostalgia monster that is fond of the cardboard boxes. Memories of the feel and smell of opening a new game.

I still have Rayman 2 on the N64 I can't bear to open. One of these days I will.

[jakeOSX]

i still have ff5 for the GBA unopened for when i miss those boxes.

and when i get time to you know, play it. (sigh, i am such a squeenix whore)

carts do make sense, you can get  32 gb cards now which should be able to fit most games these days. if not, there are up to 256 (though i wouldn't want to pay more for the card than i did for the game consule. unless it was a final fantasy game.)

i do think there is some merit in crossing the line between consul and portable. animal crossing missed this boat, really hard too. why can't i play the same game on the DS and the Wii? i mean the SAME game. same thing with mario kart, or what have you.

so the carts will be DS2 carts, all will be scalable from three inch screens to 60 inch HD televisions. nintendo will finally understand this "internets" thing and load times will be so fast you can beat MGS faster than someone on Xbox can get it started.

[Stratos]

My friend needs early notice that we are going to go over to his house to play Hale 2 so that he can call his wife and have her boot up the system so we don't have to wait when we get there. Some unlucky times she is not there. The original XBox load times were horrible.

[DAaaMan64]

I should state that the reason I'm 100% positive that Nintendo will be using "carts" for their next console (be they holographic data cards or ­über SD Cards) is because of this whole "disruption" kick Nintendo's been on.  They've successfully steered this generation to be more about interface than more powerful hardware, for example.

So why not attempt to change the values of the next gen by making the game's media more about access speed and reliability than capacity?  It's something nobody is really thinking about right now.  Everybody's all starry eyed about a 75 GB Triple Layered Blu-Ray Disc or some kind of 2 TB Hard Drive for all this talk of future-proof Digital Distribution, when nobody wants to talk about the DREs and the scratched disks and the drive failures and the "you rent this from our servers, you don't actually own it" issues that go with them.  I can't be the only guy that sees the DS's loading times and compares them to MGS4's 8 minute "installs" and wonder why the hell we're getting cheated on this front just because the Playstation won the Console War more than a decade ago.  I can't be the only guy who's had 2 PS1's break, had a PS2 break, and has had several computer failures, but also had an NES that still works, an SNES that still works, an N64 that still works, and every permutation of gameboy and DS work fine to this day, and noticed that the problems are with moving parts, spinning motors, and easily damaged media.

End the Disc!  Carts now!  Carts forever!

Yes, I completely agree with this.  **** discs, the world is beyond that. Carts are back, and they damn well should be. Moving parts and easy scratches are awful!

[Caliban]

I agree. If Wii games came in carts just like DS games, I would be much happier. Less noise because there is no DVD twirling around inside the Wii. The carts are small, so the cases they come in are also small which is good to organize my gaming collection. It would mean they could literally make a Wii Lite.

[NovaQ]

I'm jumping on the cart wagon, too. In addition to the benefits y'all have pointed out, there are environmental ones. The lack of moving parts for optical media would make the console more energy efficient. And since the carts would likely be smaller than optical discs, manufacturers would need less plastic to make the carts and their cases.

Really, other than the worry of wear and tear that Mop_it_up pointed out, I don't see any disadvantage to solid state anymore. Even the fact that they're kinda "retro" (for a home console) could become a marketing advantage.

[Chozo Ghost]

Having games the size of postage stamps makes it more likely the games might get lost. This is a major downside to having things small... I'm sure it would be possible to go even smaller than the size of MicroSD cards if one really wanted to, but if its so tiny you could accidentally inhale it then that';s just too small...

So while stuff CAN certainly keep getting smaller, I think a line needs to be drawn when you get to the size of a credit card or so. Smaller is nice to an extent, but you don't something easily lost or broken... and heck, its theoretically possible a kid could choke to death by trying to swallow his games. I'm surprised this hasn't happened already with the Nintendo DS games... but you definitely don't want to go any smaller than that or it surely will.

[UltimatePartyBear]

However small the actual memory card may be, it can be put in a cartridge of any size.  I don't think there's any need to worry about them getting too small.

[Mop it up]

Another nice thing about cartridges is that the sizes can vary depending on what is needed, which will reduce the cost of smaller games. It was mentioned earlier that games like Animal Crossing and Super Paper Mario use a low amount of data, around 512MB, but they still need to be put on 4.7GB discs so they cost the same to produce as larger games.

As far as games which require a lot of space are concerned, that's where compression comes in. Just look at some of the Nintendo 64 games that were crammed into cartridges. Super Mario 64 is only 8MB and that game is massive. Perfect Dark is 32MB and that game is loaded. Conker's Bad Fur Day is 64MB and that game has really detailed graphics, a bunch of voice, complex lighting effects and more. Sure sometimes this compression came at a loss of quality, especially in the sound department, but this was over ten years ago. Compression technology has gotten even better over the years with formats like MP3 and if they explored it further with video games then I'm sure they could cram everything they need into cartridges that could be -- what was the estimate? 32GB? That's huge as it is!

[BlackNMild2k1]

To this day, most games don't get anywhere near 32 GB in size.
Any PS3 game that claims to fill an entire BRD would have only done so because of duplicate data because the read time on the drive is too slow for speedy access the entire disc.
If more than one area in a game uses the same textures, its likely that those textures are repeated to be placed next to the area that is being read on the disc so that it can be loaded alot quicker.

Nintendo has proved that 8GB isn't needed to make a game of good visual quality (SMG), MS has proven that 8GB of space is enough to make a game of great visual quality (GoW), so I'm sure 4X the space (& 5X the read time?)is waaay more than enough for HD quality games, not only in this generation but also the next.

[Stratos]

I thought Kojima actually did legitimately us a whole BD disc with guns of the Patriots. Wasn't there talk that he almost put it on two BD discs? He claimed to have actually run out of room.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Another nice thing about cartridges is that the sizes can vary depending on what is needed, which will reduce the cost of smaller games. It was mentioned earlier that games like Animal Crossing and Super Paper Mario use a low amount of data, around 512MB, but they still need to be put on 4.7GB discs so they cost the same to produce as larger games.

That's a nonissue considering how cheaper it is to make a CD/DVD when compared to a cart. Part of the reason why SNES and N64 games were so expensive is because how expensive it was to produce a cart, of course carts are now smaller and have more efficient designs that it's now a non-issue. Unfortunately with the current trends, the only advancements we will see is a bigger push for digital distribution.

I thought Kojima actually did legitimately us a whole BD disc with guns of the Patriots. Wasn't there talk that he almost put it on two BD discs? He claimed to have actually run out of room.

He used a dual layered blu-ray disc for MGS4 which equals to about 50GB. I think he talked about how he couldn't fit it on a standard single layered blu-ray disc.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I thought Kojima actually did legitimately us a whole BD disc with guns of the Patriots. Wasn't there talk that he almost put it on two BD discs? He claimed to have actually run out of room.

He probably did run out of space. & he probably had lots of data duplicated all over the disc for load time purposes.
The read time on BRD drive in the PS3 is very slow for how much data it has to sift through.
Thats also why lots of PS3 games have you pre-load to the HDD before playing. It is dumping all the repetitive stuff to the hard drive to help with loading times.