ZeroAX wrote:Inazuma wrote:
- no load times
- more durable
- cartridge based systems themselves are less likely to break thanks to no moving parts
- can save your progress directly onto the cartridge
- it's possible to add extra chips inside the cartridge for more graphical power
- better protection against piracy (Is this a good thing or not? You be the judge.)
1) The load time in modern systems has been greatly reduced compared to the PS1 era.
2-4) So? Those things hardly make for a better gameplay experience (plus the hard drive + USB memory stick provide better use than the cartridges save memory ever could)
5) Thus making the production of the game much more expensive for a few graphical tricks
6) In this day and age with SD pirate carts, you think that would have stopped piracy on home consoles? The DS says otherwise.
There's a reason the cartridge format on home consoles died. Optical media were just better. On the other hand carts are much better suited on portables.
1) Again, cartridges have no load times. No load times is better than short load times.
2-3) Hardly make for a better gameplay experience? I wasn't talking about gameplay itself. If the game or system is broken, you can't even play the game in the first place, lol. You honestly prefer less durable games/systems? Give me a break.
4) Cartridge games aren't forced to save directly onto the cartridge. It's an option available to them that optical media cannot do.
5) Of course it makes the game more expensive. The point is, CDs can't do it. Do you even understand how Pro/Con lists work?
6) Nowadays everything is hacked, yeah. But before flash carts, CD based games were more easily pirated.
Let's make a con list for cartridges:
- more expensive to produce
- storage space is more expensive
- people are more likely to discard the box/manual which sucks if you buy used games
The main reason optical formats won out on home consoles was money. Not only was the cartridge itself expensive to make but the price of memory was very expensive as well. Nowadays memory is a lot cheaper and cartridges are a lot smaller, so it's not as bad.
You remember the Neo Geo cartridges? They could have the same storage capacity as CDs, but it was very expensive. Imagine if the PS1 used the same kind of cartridges as Neo Geo games. Of course it would have been fucking expensive but it would have better in every other way.
I know that game companies are out to make money and most consumers care about price more than quality products, so optical media was the better choice. My point is that cartridges are better, money aside.