• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Nintendo Switch uses Cartridges

b3b0p

Member
No moving parts to worry about... ?

Will it still play my games in 30 years like my NES? That would be the highlight feature.
 
My 3 and 6 year old have proven carts are no safer than discs...

Once, for about 15 minutes, we really thought our 2-year-old may have swallowed a couple of my Vita games. Besides the obvious safety concerns, I also wondered if my $40 games would be salvageable after passing through the digestive tract.
 

openrob

Member
Yeah, what else would you call them?

Game Pak

b3g34HKl6xlkcdgy.medium
 
Out of curiosity, what does this mean for installs? If they are in fact flash-type memory with a high enough bandwidth, would that make installs wholly unnecessary? I mean, you've still got patches to worry about of course, but the core game should just be readable right off the cart.

Anyone with more tech expertise on that have any thoughts?
 

kami_sama

Member
Out of curiosity, what does this mean for installs? If they are in fact flash-type memory with a high enough bandwidth, would that make installs wholly unnecessary? I mean, you've still got patches to worry about of course, but the core game should just be readable right off the cart.

Anyone with more tech expertise on that have any thoughts?

No installs, it is already in a flash chip. The connection might be a bottleneck, but I don't think Nintendo would be so shortsighted.
 
I like the sound of carts clacking around while ur digging through them. Excited to feel that sensation from a modern home console platform, lol.
 

Cyborg

Member
Are we going back in time? I just cant believe this. With all do respect to Nintendo but this is so 90"s for a homeconsle (they claim its a homeconsele)
 

tuxfool

Banned
My only worry here is the cost. The size of flash is perfectly scalable and comparable to blu-ray, but the cost-per-Gb is far greater, especially if you want it to have faster read speeds.
 

Luigi87

Member
Analog board based?

What, you think there is a vacuum tube inside NES cartridges?

Everything has always been digital. They were ROM chips that were written to once. Same shit.

Yeah that's what I meant.
That's why I did a IIRC, but didn't commit 100% to what I was saying, lol
 
My only worry here is the cost. The size of flash is perfectly scalable and comparable to blu-ray. But the cost-per-Gb is far greater especially if you want it to have faster read speeds.

Yeah what about internal memory for storage. With some games coming out over with 10gb+ patches how is this going to work? with consoles now having at least 500gb which isn't much how will this work? I mean a 250 ssd or something could work since games will mostly be on carts. Or will all cards have a writable portion for updates?
 

Gnilres

Member
When I see the pictures, I'm just chuckling at the thought of people at conventions setting up tables with Mario Kart, everyone trying to sync the controllers to the correct Switch.

wouldn't it just be the controllers that came with that specific switch?
 
That would be great if true, and not unprecedented. Some Vita games like Muramasa Rebirth stored patches and DLC directly on the cartridge.

Those games don't have big patches... If this generation is anything to go by, how are they going to put 10-20GB patches in those tiny ass cartridges. Do they even have 200gb SD Cards? Are developers really going to even bother making sure those patches will be much smaller on the Switch?
 

b3b0p

Member
Uhm, has you played with a DS/3DS/Vita? Well, Switch it will use something very similar.

Um...?

Last home console if I'm not mistaken to use cartridges and not have moving parts was the Nintendo 64.

The (3)DS is not a home console. It's a portable. I have never even seen a Vita in flesh.
 

dLMN8R

Member
Seeing people's reactions to "carts" - both today and way back when the rumor first came out - is really weird.

Do you really expect this thing to use discs or something? Did you forget how cheap SD storage is today? You know, the SD storage which both the Wii U and 3DS currently use?


Saying that the Switch uses "carts" seems like a misnomer unless Nintendo itself is directly using that terminology. Instead it seems like the Switch supports selling games on SD cards, or something similar to SD cards.

They're tiny, cheap, far better for a handheld, and can be written to too. Seems like an awesome idea for a handheld.
 

Unai

Member
Um...?

Last home console if I'm not mistaken to use cartridges and not have moving parts was the Nintendo 64.

The (3)DS is not a home console. It's a portable. I have never even seen a Vita in flesh.

The Switch is a hybrid, so optical media is a no no.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
Seeing people's reactions to "carts" - both today and way back when the rumor first came out - is really weird.

Do you really expect this thing to use discs or something? Did you forget how cheap SD storage is today? You know, the SD storage which both the Wii U and 3DS currently use?


Saying that the Switch uses "carts" seems like a misnomer unless Nintendo itself is directly using that terminology. Instead it seems like the Switch supports selling games on SD cards, or something similar to SD cards.

They're tiny, cheap, far better for a handheld, and can be written to too. Seems like an awesome idea for a handheld.

I never understood it either. The 3DS uses carts, the Vita uses carts.
Just because it's a hybrid now doesn't make the cartridge solution special.
 
Makes sense. What else were they supposed to use? Blu-Rays?

Going cart is the best move for a handheld device at least, but I can see storage space issues being a thing eventually.
 

dracula_x

Member
Seeing people's reactions to "carts" - both today and way back when the rumor first came out - is really weird.

Do you really expect this thing to use discs or something? Did you forget how cheap SD storage is today? You know, the SD storage which both the Wii U and 3DS currently use?


Saying that the Switch uses "carts" seems like a misnomer unless Nintendo itself is directly using that terminology. Instead it seems like the Switch supports selling games on SD cards, or something similar to SD cards.

They're tiny, cheap, far better for a handheld, and can be written to too. Seems like an awesome idea for a handheld.
no, it's GameCard


I never understood it either. The 3DS uses carts, the Vita uses carts.
Just because it's a hybrid now doesn't make the cartridge solution special.
Game cards. Not cartridges.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Are we going back in time? I just cant believe this. With all do respect to Nintendo but this is so 90"s for a homeconsle (they claim its a homeconsele)

Optical would be 90's...

microSDs are in nearly every modern devices now, except stubborn companies like Apple. 128GB (and more..) on something smaller than a stamp, does not scream "90's" to me.
 
Those games don't have big patches... If this generation is anything to go by, how are they going to put 10-20GB patches in those tiny ass cartridges. Do they even have 200gb SD Cards? Are developers really going to even bother making sure those patches will be much smaller on the Switch?
It's all relative. The size of the Muramasa patch+DLC data is 3/4 the size of the base game. Of course, we're talking under 1GB total here, but if we've got 32GB cartridges for NX and the base game is a bit less than that, it would make a lot of sense to allocate the remaining space for patches.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Admittedly there's some historical hilarity in this. Solid state media sank Nintendo with the N64, but now it actually makes sense on a modern Nintendo device.
 
Top Bottom