It is very wise to put an expansion port on a console to leave yourself the possibility of future ideas. The fact that they didn't see much use doesn't mean they should have been left out. Every one of Nintendo's home consoles had an add-on device. The fact that they weren't popular is something else, but they would never have existed at all if the consoles didn't have expansion ports. BS Zelda is awesome! And some people would be very unhappy if they found out they could have had the GB Player for the Cube, if only Nintendo was smart enough to put an expansion slot on the console. There's also unofficial products for some console's expansion ports. Like copier devices for the N64 or the GameShark for the PS1. So I'd say over all, expansion slots are a very good thing.kingmohd84 wrote:After reading the article, I find it confusing that Nintendo had an expansion port in each console yet each one of them over 2 decades was hardly been used. Its nice to see they finally learned and did not add it to the Wii or Wii U, none the less I still do not know why they added 2 USB ports and an SD card slot. Well...the SD card slot is very useful for homebrew :p Thanx Nintendo!
Nintendo didn't wise up and not include expansion ports on the Wii, the USB ports and SD slot can be thought of as expansion ports for the same purposes. They're just not proprietary, which is better for us.
The Wii's USB ports and SD slot are important. I use both for very important things, and my console isn't even modified. I use the LAN adapter in a USB port since I don't wanna rely on wireless. I use an SD card to store games downloaded from the Wii shop channel (there's the SD card menu).
Nintendo was smart to give us an SD slot. At the start, it had limited functionality. Viewing pictures on the Photo Channel isn't something I care about, but being able to transfer game saves to and from a buddies console is great. But more importantly, it's more cost effective then giving the Wii more internal memory. It doesn't exactly have a lot. They could have added more, and made the console more expensive. SD cards are a lot cheaper these days. And Nintendo added the SD card menu.
Well those are all much different devices. Power input is much different than a cartridge slot. As to why cartridge slots are different from generation to generation, there's a number of reasons. First of all, it has to do with memory size. If you look at the number of address lines needed for the small memory in an Atari 2600 cart, it's not that many. If you look at the number of address lines needed for a SNES cart, it's a lot more. Another good reason to change the cart slot though is to keep it proprietary, and for obvious reasons.kingmohd84 wrote:The other thing I never understood about manufacturers is why do they have different ports for each device? Why is electricity port is different form the joystick's , and that is different from the cartridge, and that cartridge is different from the cartridge pins from a previous generation. Why couldnt they agree on a single port like USB is today?
Again, all for different things. I believe two of the ports are serial and one is parallel. IIRC, the only two official products were the modem and GB Player. And I've never owned the modem before, but I believe you are able to plug the modem in and still be able to plug the GB Player in. So if you were a person that uses both frequently, it would be really annoying to have to remove one to install the other, and back and forth all the time.kingmohd84 wrote:Gamecube has 3 differently sized expansion ports!
Wouldn't that be neat? But I think the only system ever that could officially play games from a competitor was the Colecovision playing Atari 2600 games with an addon.