Any chance carts could make a comeback?

[t0yrobo]

I see carts of some sort sticking around for handhelds and arcade systems, but I think it's just not gonna happen for home systems. Big companies fret over pennies in production costs, increasing them by 10x or more is pretty drastic.

[saturnfan]

Not only will the companies not want to pay the extra cost, but the consumers don't want to pay it either, especially if the cost is arbitrary. Why pay $75-$80 for a game when it could have been on a disc for $50-$60.

[CRTGAMER]

No. I think Bluray-DVD game medium will be around for a while.
Sadly, DLC will eventually be the norm to activate any purchased game.
This will kill both used games and the future Retro game crippled by DLC activation.

[jfe2]

I've thought about this in the past. I personally see disc based media sticking around, but I wouldn't be surprised if carts made a comeback. Flash storage seems to have been on the rise.

[dsheinem]

Not only will the companies not want to pay the extra cost, but the consumers don't want to pay it either, especially if the cost is arbitrary. Why pay $75-$80 for a game when it could have been on a disc for $50-$60.

I bet they'd pay $70. People drug their feet for the move from $50 to $60 this gen, but that seems to have worked out ok. Hell, MS raised the price whilst still using the medium of the previous gen.

Sadly, DLC will eventually be the norm to activate any purchased game.
This will kill both used games and the future Retro game crippled by DLC activation.

I hope you are wrong about this, but I fear you may be right. On the other hand, a staggering number of people never put their consoles online - so maybe this would be an even riskier prospect than changing formats?

[saturnfan]

But they raised the price because they knew assumed they could get the extra $10 out of us to help offset the rising costs of game production (and they were right). If they switch to a cart that costs $20-$30 to make (vs. $2-$3) they will pass the entire cost to the consumer, not part of it, meaning games will cost at least $80 now that I think about it. I don't think they will eat a any portion of that cost because that will severally dip into their profits... unless of course it can be proven and shown that the reduction in piracy will greatly increase their profit margin.

[MrPopo]

Supposedly the 3DS will have more features to combat piracy. If they work out well I could definitely see a shift back to "carts" using flash media. But if we see flash cards that are as easy to use as the DS's then there's no chance; at least pirating on the 360 requires some effort so they'll stick with that.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I know this thread is about carts, but since someone mentioned DLC, I thought that I would throw this comment in. I probably will never buy any DLC since my internet connection stinks. I love how these companies assume that everyone who wants their product has broad band access. The same thing occurred with the release of Avatar on BluRay. There were lots of players that had to update their firmware to play it. What if those players weren't hooked to the internet?

JY

[samsonlonghair]

I'm thinking that all physical media will someday be replaced by downloadable content. Be it games, movies, or music, digital files will become the de facto standard.

[Flake]

Screw carts. Let's start putting games on TAPES again.

Take THAT piracy!