The 1990s saw a massive shift in how games were delivered, with CD-ROMs becoming the de facto storage medium of that age thanks to the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and the ten people who purchased an Atari Jaguar.
Nintendo however, was famously hesitant with adopting disc-based media for their games, sticking to cartridges with their next console, the N64. Even when Nintendo decided to start using discs with the GameCube console in 2001, they were mini-discs that entire games were stored on.
Now, it looks like Nintendo may be going back to good ol’ carts.
Nintendo has filed a patent application for a console that has no optical disc drive whatsoever, and speculation is running wild like 1980s Hulkamania. Filed in February and published last week, the diagram details a console with a card slot, internal hard drive and the means to connect an external.
It’s been almost 20 years since Nintendo stuck to catridges for the N64, and the patent doesn’t deliver any other details on what type of memory card could be inserted into the console. Knowing Nintendo, it’ll most likely be one of their own shape and design.
And that’s something that you can see plenty of with their handheld devices, from Gameboy to 3DS. And it could work for them. Carts are smaller, while storage capacity is on the up and up.
While Nintendo games are rarely massive enough to take up an entire Blu-Ray disc, let alone an HD-DVD, current third-party games easily stretch from around 15 to 50GB these days, depending on the ambition.
But here’s the kicker: A new cart-based system could finally create an eco-system that bridges both handheld and portable consoles, something I imagine is pretty likely now that Nintendo has partnered up with mobile games company DeNA. But that’s just me speculating.
I’ll miss the Wii U discs however, which show some of that Nintendo forward-thinking of having rounded edges. But a cart-based system, expensive as it may be to produce, could give Nintendo the device that they need to get back into the game, while also preventing any piracy.
Until somebody R4s the crap out of that NX console. And then it’ll fly off of shelves.
Last Updated: August 24, 2015
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
August 24, 2015 at 07:41
Why not just create locked flash drives. With USB3 they are fast enough and imagine the space you will be saving.
Then again I would probably just lose half my games and find it months later when I am vacuuming my couch. 😛
Ranting Raptor
August 24, 2015 at 09:12
Do you know how bad I am with flash drives. I’d loose it within seconds
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
August 24, 2015 at 09:33
Bought three 128GB Samsung Usb3 drives the other day. Lost one the same day.Lent one to a friend two days later. Still need to get it back and the last one is somewhere near my PC I think.
Ranting Raptor
August 24, 2015 at 09:41
Haha. See what I mean?
CypherGate
August 24, 2015 at 09:17
They most probably will use their own take on a modern cartridge system. Much smaller than before and most probably will be based on Flashdrives as well, but not as small as a flashdrive.
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
August 24, 2015 at 09:31
BUT! Can you still blow the dust off if it doesn’t work right? 🙂
CypherGate
August 25, 2015 at 08:49
Yup it will come equipped with ‘Dust Blow Technology’!
Jill Sandwich
June 28, 2016 at 09:26
The 3DS uses cartridges & they never have to be blown on.
CypherGate
August 24, 2015 at 09:16
Sounds awesome. Looking forward to seeing if this is true!
UltimateNinjaPandaDudeGuy
August 24, 2015 at 09:29
YES! Man this sounds cool! I love the old school vibes coming from this!
JEngland
August 24, 2015 at 15:09
I’m cool get getting another ROM cart for console. Still rocking mine for Genesis and SNES
Sam al
August 26, 2015 at 22:49
If this is true..imagine if they could have an adapter so it would be backwards compatible with the N64. That would be insane.
Jill Sandwich
June 28, 2016 at 09:25
Technically, Nintendo has never STOPPED using cartridges. All iterations of the Gameboy & DS used them to this day.