Why The NX Should Use Cartridges - IGN

One editor makes the argument why a cartridge-based console would be a smart move for Nintendo.

[s45gr32]

This was a cringeworthy article. All Nintendo has to do is improve the Wii U gamepad and sell that as a hybrid system (handheld meets console) end of story

[Fullmetalevolust]

That's what I want the NX to be, a beast of a machine or at least a great contender for the neo and scorpio, improve on the gamepad and make it mobile. Compact, sleek, great screen, strong remote play and be taken on the go.
Backward compatible for all the Wiiu games people already have and bam!
Cartridges are great for portables...so it's going portable as well, then yeah. You can plug in the cartridge in the main console or the gamepad on the go.

[Grilla]

"That's what I want the NX to be, a beast of a machine or at least a great contender for the neo and scorpio, "

We'll be lucky if it's as powerful as reg ps4. I think they'll be shooting for 250-300$ on price.

[Satou]

Actually your comment is pretty cringeworthy... Seriously, a hybrid system based on the Wii U gamepad? That would mean it's underpowered and overpriced...

For mobile it would be worthless because of battery life, and for a homeconsole you'd be paying upwards to $500-700 for a console less powerful. How this even makes the slightest bit of sense is beyond me.

[stalepie]

what do cartridges have to do with kids or lack of menus? This article makes no sense.

[herbs]

Total empty husk of an article. I'm all for cartridges but the reasons given in this weird opinion piece where just not really valid at all.

[Neonridr]

Don't understand how 3rd party support would be lacking if Nintendo used cartridges or flash cards. Have you seen prices of SD cards with huge storage capacities? Quicker loading times as well. Updates have nothing to do with a cartridge or disc, that's all done via the internet and patches to the game on the hard drive.

[OpenGL]

Cartridges only make sense for a handheld, they do not belong on a home console. The "cartridges don't have load times!" argument is just flat out wrong. The Vita uses cartridges and load times on that device are generally worse than the PS3 and PS4. This is because the Vita unlike the cartridge systems of old, actually has a fair amount of RAM. It's easy for a game to have short or no load times when the system only has 4MB of RAM like the N64 (without the expansion pack, which increases it to 8MB).

The fastest SD cards on the market read at around 100MB/s, and a decent mechanical hard drive can sequentially read at around 120MB/s. I doubt Nintendo would use flash cards with that high-end of NAND as it would be cost prohibitive. If the NX has 8GB of RAM like the PS4 and Xbox One (or even more RAM), there's no way that being on cartridges will mean that the games have no load times.

[Zeldafan64]

You need to research the read speeds of sd cards. They have some now with read speeds of 270 MB/s. Just Google micro sd cards 270 MB/s read speed. 100 MB/s is not the high end anymore.

[OpenGL]

A 32GB UHS-3 SD card costs $35 retail. Let's say you can get them for 1/3rd that at mass, you think 3rd party studios are going to like paying $12 for a cartridge that holds less than a $0.02 Blu-ray disc? Most UHS class SD cards have a read speed of less than 100MB/s.

[herbs]

It seems pretty obvious at this point that the carts will work on both the home and mobile consoles. You will likely have the option to buy them together or separate. Separate home console will likely come with a more standard controller but if you have both you will could use the mobile unit with extra features similar to the Gamepad. Maybe they will be able to share processing power and slightly boost the performance when connected as well.

[Zeldafan64]

Mark up on sd cards is astronomically high. Do you honestly think manufacturing those tiny little chips costs $10 each? There's absolutely no way. Cost to manufacture memory these days is next to nothing.

[Zeldafan64]

The fact that you didn't even acknowledge you're mistake shows it wasn't a mistake. You knew there were faster memory cards out there but didn't want to advertise that. You just wanted to spread misinformation and hope no one would notice and call you out on it.

[OpenGL]

Most UHS-3 class memory cards DO NOT read at over 200MB/s, and good luck finding anything outside of a high-end DSLR or Mirrorless camera that actually supports UHS-3 anyway.

It's not misinformation that cartridges are expensive and pointless in 2016 unless the NX is a handheld. It will needlessly increase the cost of games for what are at best questionable performance gains. You know what would be even faster and more cost effective? A console with an SSD.

[Zeldafan64]

What is the matter with you? There is something seriously wrong with you.

[Metallox]

?

He didn't say anything bad to you.

[Drdeadlocke]

I just want NX to be basically the wii u gamepad but portable and with good battery life

[Metallox]

The first thing the NX should avoid from its predecessor is the controller.

[blawren4]

The controller was amazing, and only related to the problem due to sharing resources with the system itself. If they can make a system that is easy to port to, with sufficient power on 3rd parties games AND sufficient additional power to run the gamepad effectively. Taking power from the system to run the gamepad was one of the large mistakes, not the existence of the gamepad itself.

sufficient power on par with Sony/MS, a gamepad with its own processor/graphics chip, and easy porting of AAA games = Winning system.

[Zeldafan64]

The Gamepad just needs to be slimmed down with scrolling shoulder buttons.

[xX1NORM1Xx]

All i want from the nx is for it to be a hybrid so we can finally have a proper pokemon game on the console i hate tiny screens maybe x/y/omega/alpha style game when not plugged in to the base console unit and a more zoomed out higher quality graphics and sounds when plugged in. Thats alot to ask but id love it