Is gaming going backwards?

[thorbahn3]

I wrote this article on old hardware having features new hardware doesn't and wondered what you thought.

http://www.vgpub.com/one-step-back/editorial/1

[PenguinMaster]

Good article, though you forgot to mention the Micro also has a smaller screen, I hate the damn Micro.

[kakomu]

I think FF3 was more expensive than most games for other reasons. Virtua Racer was $100 because it had a bunch of "advanced" chips in it. As for saving games, they were saved via battery backup...many of which have died by now and are a bitch to change. At least with solid state memory card back ups, you don't have to worry about a battery dying.

[RAMSTORIA]

i think nintendo is going i the right direction with the revolution, and its related... heres why. with 2d gaming, the basic premise was all there, and all sorts of gimicky stuff was attempted to improve gaming, but how much really changed? i mean rob, cmon. its the same with the next gen, weve made the leap to 3d, how much more can gaming change? sure graphics will get better, but gameplay, i mean more or less weve seen different version of mario 64 for 8 years. hopefully nintendo will introduce something new, otherwise the ps3 and xbox360 will just be prettier versions of what we have now.

[jkam]

I actually asked the question in a Cagcast if Cheapy and Wombat thought hardware development was going backwards. The PSP was ruined for me with the load times. Everyone bashes the cube but I ususally buy 3rd party titles on it because it loads quicker than my PS2.

It seems people who grew up on the playstation just accept the load times but I for one also remember the nes and snes days.

I think Nintendo is going in the right direction with the Revolution. A console quick to boot up and smaller load times.

[looploop]

Sega Saturn, one of the first major CD-based consoles, offered onboard RAM for saving games out of the box and Xbox does the same thing via its hard drive.
So while there was a viable solution to the problem of memory cards for CD-based media it wasn't implemented by Sony and Nintendo(and even Sega's Dreamcast) as it should have been.

[bmulligan]

Sega Saturn, one of the first major CD-based consoles, offered onboard RAM for saving games out of the box and Xbox does the same thing via its hard drive.
So while there was a viable solution to the problem of memory cards for CD-based media it wasn't implemented by Sony and Nintendo(and even Sega's Dreamcast) as it should have been.

I thought you needed a ram cart to save games. I wasn't aware of "onboard" ram fort he Saturn. Am I wrong ?

[terribledeli]

I thought you needed a ram cart to save games. I wasn't aware of "onboard" ram fort he Saturn. Am I wrong ?


It had on board. However, there were a few titles that basically forced you to get a Ram cart. Sim City 2000 comes to mind.

[looploop]

I thought you needed a ram cart to save games. I wasn't aware of "onboard" ram fort he Saturn. Am I wrong ?

yeah, it does come with dedicated internal RAM(powered by a lithium battery) for game saves.
The backup RAM cart gets more attention because it offers a boatload more space than the internal RAM and is pretty essential if you want to never have to delete a save.
However, there was still enough internal RAM for a good amount of gamesaves.

[bmulligan]

I thought it only saved the time and date, my bad...

[Graystone]

Great article.

[Duo_Maxwell]

Take no offense to what I'm about to say, but you failed to look at the cons of your points and just ran with your one opinion of how things are. Which is I guess the point of an editorial, but to me at least the whole thing makes you seem like a bitter, aging gamer who can't adapt (or just refuses to) to change.

One of the biggest downsides to cartridges, or at least the old kind is lack of storage space and lastability. Contrary to the article's apparent belief the old cartridges don't last forever, most have a battery in them to save data and after a decade or so that battery can easily die, digital media lasts forever solong as you don't destroy it yourself. Storage capacity is another, if we want HD gaming we'll never see it with cartridges, I mean what's the largest amount of flash memory available now, 4 gigs? That won't even beat out a single layered DVD. Then there's the apparent "solution" to protecting discs, you apparently not used D-skins or a Game Dr., because if you had you'd know they are garbage. The real solution is taking care of your $50 investment, while I've never encountered a disc where a "slight scratch" would totally stop it, I also take care of my games. I've had discs for years that are just fine, even some PS1 games I own still have no scratches. And people never do that, even when a disc has what's basically a plastic housing of sorts ala UMDs or minidiscs people still manage to scratch them. So I guess I don't get how moving from cartridges to discs is moving backwards, systems have evolved and the media they used needed to evolve as well other wise we'd still be playing 32/64-bit games (which maybe what you want but I appareciate current and next gen graphics).

That's were I disagree with you really, I'll give you the Gameboy thing because to be honest I think Nintendo enjoys experimenting too much sometimes and the Micro is a good example of that (also is it really preforming on the charts at all? I thought it was doing poorly or at least below expectations). As for the part about hard drives, I think you are being a little pessimestic (sp?) there. It's my belief that we'll see more games that use the harddrive in the furture than games that don't. Why? Three reasons: MS intends the 360 to be the centerpeice of all things media in your living and you can't do that effectively without a harddrive and the same goes for backwards compatibility. Secondly, currently the majority of systems being sold and shipped to retailers are Premium consoles. Finally, like you even said those that get core are buying the hard drives which means even more people have access to them. So while I'm sure not every game will utilize the harddrive we won't have another PS2 HDD situation on our hands and a good number of 360 games will beign to use the harddrive (some are starting to require it already). However I do agree that the HDD for the 360 is terribly over priced especially for the limitations it has and the actual storage space you get (like 13 gbs IIRC).

[kakomu]

digital media lasts forever
Cartridges are digital media, too. Do you mean optical media?

[Limegreen]

Great article i actually read every word of it !

What they should do with the cd's is give them a protective outer layer similar to floppy's or UMD's for the psp !

[gtguru]

Just so you know, if you take two steps forward, and one step back, your are still going forwards, not backwards.

[looploop]

Just so you know, if you take two steps forward, and one step back, your are still going forwards, not backwards.
The point is that you're advancing in some ways but regressing in others. Thus not advancing as much as would be hoped.

[kakomu]

The point is that you're advancing in some ways but regressing in others. Thus not advancing as much as would be hoped.
I don't see pulling a "feature" as a regression. I really didn't care much for the article, nor felt its points were particularly good.

[Duo_Maxwell]

Cartridges are digital media, too. Do you mean optical media?

Yeah good point, I was bound to screw something up in all my ranting (and that probably wasn't the only thing).

[praystation]

Take no offense to what I'm about to say, but you failed to look at the cons of your points and just ran with your one opinion of how things are. Which is I guess the point of an editorial, but to me at least the whole thing makes you seem like a bitter, aging gamer who can't adapt (or just refuses to) to change.

One of the biggest downsides to cartridges, or at least the old kind is lack of storage space and lastability. Contrary to the article's apparent belief the old cartridges don't last forever, most have a battery in them to save data and after a decade or so that battery can easily die, digital media lasts forever solong as you don't destroy it yourself. Storage capacity is another, if we want HD gaming we'll never see it with cartridges, I mean what's the largest amount of flash memory available now, 4 gigs? That won't even beat out a single layered DVD. Then there's the apparent "solution" to protecting discs, you apparently not used D-skins or a Game Dr., because if you had you'd know they are garbage. The real solution is taking care of your $50 investment, while I've never encountered a disc where a "slight scratch" would totally stop it, I also take care of my games. I've had discs for years that are just fine, even some PS1 games I own still have no scratches. And people never do that, even when a disc has what's basically a plastic housing of sorts ala UMDs or minidiscs people still manage to scratch them. So I guess I don't get how moving from cartridges to discs is moving backwards, systems have evolved and the media they used needed to evolve as well other wise we'd still be playing 32/64-bit games (which maybe what you want but I appareciate current and next gen graphics).

That's were I disagree with you really, I'll give you the Gameboy thing because to be honest I think Nintendo enjoys experimenting too much sometimes and the Micro is a good example of that (also is it really preforming on the charts at all? I thought it was doing poorly or at least below expectations). As for the part about hard drives, I think you are being a little pessimestic (sp?) there. It's my belief that we'll see more games that use the harddrive in the furture than games that don't. Why? Three reasons: MS intends the 360 to be the centerpeice of all things media in your living and you can't do that effectively without a harddrive and the same goes for backwards compatibility. Secondly, currently the majority of systems being sold and shipped to retailers are Premium consoles. Finally, like you even said those that get core are buying the hard drives which means even more people have access to them. So while I'm sure not every game will utilize the harddrive we won't have another PS2 HDD situation on our hands and a good number of 360 games will beign to use the harddrive (some are starting to require it already). However I do agree that the HDD for the 360 is terribly over priced especially for the limitations it has and the actual storage space you get (like 13 gbs IIRC).


Wow, what you said is very offensive. Please soften the blow next time if u intend to be not-offensive.

[Duo_Maxwell]

Wow, what you said is very offensive. Please soften the blow next time if u intend to be not-offensive.

I think you broke Professor Frink's Sarcasm detector...

http://www.internerd.com/frinky/images/screenshots/sarcasmdet.jpg

Honestly I probably didn't need to say that but you never know how people will act when you deconstruct their works. I'll always remember a girl in a creative writing class a couple years ago when I told her rather frankly that I thought her characters where redunant and boring, she called me an asshole IIRC and refused to work with me in editing at all for the rest of the semester. How she got through that class with others editing her work the whole time I dunno....

[kill3r7]

Disc vs. Cartridge

In order to make some of the games today you have to use Optical digital media. Ram is still too expensive to use for console gaming. You would never be able to play Halo or Final Fantasy X in Cartridges. These games are around 3GB and if you were to use ram that would awfully expensive when compared to the price of DVDs. Plus you have to remember that there are Sound limitations on Cartridges as proven by most N64 games and Nintendo's decision to move away from such media.


Is the Game Boy advancing?

I totally agree with you that Nintendo seems to take two steps forwards and one step back. But I think that they don't care about backwards compatibility. I ran into an old buddy of mine who does game advertising and he said that based on a variety of surveys done by MS and Sony it was shown that only about 15% of gamers care about backwards compatibility and even less care about game reviews. I know it's hard to believe but that's how the industry views backwards compatibility.

To hard drive or not to hard drive.

I see hard drives as being the way of the future. They'll enable you to download games, patches and various other content. I believe Microsoft’s decision to have two systems will truly hinder their ability to use the hard drive. Unless, they come out with some truly compelling content. IMO it will go by the wayside.

Overall I think the article was well written with the only drawback being Optical vs. Cartridges issue. There's no way gaming will ever move back to Cartridges, it's just not financially smart.

[Photomotoz]

What some company should do is make a cross between cartridges and discs. Make a cartridge, with a disc inside. Add the load up data on a RAM chip there. Basically the RAM chip will store the data needed to load up the first few minutes, this will give the console time to load level data into it's own RAM. The cartridge/disc would be sort a like an upside down U. The tupper part would be the disc and the bottom would contain the contacts for the RAM.

Anyway back on topic. Yeah, I see what you mean with your cart and disc arguement. I heavily prefer cartridges to discs but I know that using them just doesnt make sense and that in the modern world optical media makes sense. The Micro's backwards compatibility is also an issue, I revered the GB system as the king of backward compatability until this.

Also I think the loadtimes issue would simply be solved if console had more RAM. If during the time they spent getting to the menu and allowing us to make a selection they instead loaded up commonly used things into the RAM it would speed things up a lot.

[kakomu]

What some company should do is make a cross between cartridges and discs. Make a cartridge, with a disc inside. Add the load up data on a RAM chip there. Basically the RAM chip will store the data needed to load up the first few minutes, this will give the console time to load level data into it's own RAM. The cartridge/disc would be sort a like an upside down U. The tupper part would be the disc and the bottom would contain the contacts for the RAM.
Why incorporate separate ram chips into every single disc, when you can just incorporate it into the console? Oh wait, they already do.

[sabin23]

Sony should have included 4-controller ports on PS2 instead of making people buy multitaps...

4-player games were one of the main things going for N64 otherwise PSOne would have completely crushed Nintendo during that console generation.

If Sony had included 4-controller ports, network adapter, and HD with PS2... maybe there wouldn't be a XB360 now... but I'm all for healthy competition. I own all the systems and each one offers something a little different.

[kill3r7]

Sony should have included 4-controller ports on PS2 instead of making people buy multitaps...

4-player games were one of the main things going for N64 otherwise PSOne would have completely crushed Nintendo during that console generation.

If Sony had included 4-controller ports, network adapter, and HD with PS2... maybe there wouldn't be a XB360 now... but I'm all for healthy competition. I own all the systems and each one offers something a little different.

What correlation is there between 4-controller ports and the success of the Xbox or the existence of Xbox360?

[thorbahn3]

Thanks for reading the article. Of course discs are better than cartridges in many respects. I was just pointing out where the cartridge has the upper hand which it shouldn't if a disc was truly better.

[kakomu]

Thanks for reading the article. Of course discs are better than cartridges in many respects. I was just pointing out where the cartridge has the upper hand which it shouldn't if a disc was truly better.
Optical storage is better in all aspects that it needs to be. It can hold large amounts of data. It's extremely inexpensive and it has a good transfer speed. If these factors were NOT important, then we'd be having games sold to us on mini hard drives or the like.

The only thing that solid state media has over optical media is read speed. Otherwise, cost is a big factor. The electronic components inside the cartridge can go stale (Nintendo cartridge contact problems), the electronic components can short out, and the whole thing can just suffer so many more breakdowns than optical media can. The only thing you need to worry about with optical media is scratches on the disc.

[thorbahn3]

Optical storage is better in all aspects that it needs to be. It can hold large amounts of data. It's extremely inexpensive and it has a good transfer speed. If these factors were NOT important, then we'd be having games sold to us on mini hard drives or the like.

The only thing that solid state media has over optical media is read speed. Otherwise, cost is a big factor. The electronic components inside the cartridge can go stale (Nintendo cartridge contact problems), the electronic components can short out, and the whole thing can just suffer so many more breakdowns than optical media can. The only thing you need to worry about with optical media is scratches on the disc.

I thought Nintendo cartridge contact problems were the systems fault from wear and tear due from taking cartridges in and out. Replace the pin connector and it works like new. Not bad for a 20 year old system that still works today. I wonder how well the PS2 will do on its 20th birthday.

[kakomu]

I thought Nintendo cartridge contact problems were the systems fault from wear and tear due from taking cartridges in and out. Replace the pin connector and it works like new. Not bad for a 20 year old system that still works today. I wonder how well the PS2 will do on its 20th birthday.
contact problems can also be due to oxidation of the copper on the contacts. That being said, I think it's also important to realize that games are just plain getting bigger. One reason you don't find loading screens on a cartridge based game is because the game is just so small. Average size for an SNES game couldn't have gone past 1.5-2 megs with games topping out at 4 megs. I can't explain why, but the games are typically just more bloated on the disc based systems. Where Kof 2002 would be about 120 megs (uncompressed), my kof 2002 DVD for PS2 is 3.3 gigs. I'm not sure if that's because of dummy files, but I'm willing to guess that it's because of developers bloating the data.

Games are just getting larger. You won't find a ton of data being streamed through the SNES's bus. Whereas, with a PS2 or any other current gen system, a LOT more data is moving around. This increased data traffic just takes longer to move from point to point. If we actually had 1-2 gig cartridges, you'd still find plenty of loading times. Later neo geo catridges certainly had a few loading times interspersed. So, comparing cartridges directly to optical media is like comparing apples and oranges.

[daroga]

Optical storage is better in all aspects that it needs to be. It can hold large amounts of data. It's extremely inexpensive and it has a good transfer speed. If these factors were NOT important, then we'd be having games sold to us on mini hard drives or the like.

The only thing that solid state media has over optical media is read speed. Otherwise, cost is a big factor. The electronic components inside the cartridge can go stale (Nintendo cartridge contact problems), the electronic components can short out, and the whole thing can just suffer so many more breakdowns than optical media can. The only thing you need to worry about with optical media is scratches on the disc.
Most of what you said is true, but the fact remains that it's far more common and easier to scrach a disc then it is to break a cartridge. All of my NES games still work perfectly (all even still saved the last I checked!), and those things have hardly been handled with kidgloves. You just have to clean them. CDs, on the other hand, are only one wrong step from being snapped in half or scratched to heck. Carts may have more than could go wrong, but optical media's game-breaking damage is far easier done.

That being said, optical media, at the moment is the only option that really makes sense. As long as they can keep load times down, it'll be fine. Games constructed with inital loads and then masking the loads by and large (Metroid Prime, Halo, etc.) are really the way to go. Painful, long, mid-action load screens are game killers and make me long to go back to the Genesis days.

[kakomu]

Most of what you said is true, but the fact remains that it's far more common and easier to scrach a disc then it is to break a cartridge. All of my NES games still work perfectly (all even still saved the last I checked!), and those things have hardly been handled with kidgloves. You just have to clean them. CDs, on the other hand, are only one wrong step from being snapped in half or scratched to heck. Carts may have more than could go wrong, but optical media's game-breaking damage is far easier done.
Discs get scratched up all the time. Error correction on data discs is good enough to account for all the scratches. You have to REALLY mess the game up for it to be rendered unplayable.

That being said, optical media, at the moment is the only option that really makes sense. As long as they can keep load times down, it'll be fine. Games constructed with inital loads and then masking the loads by and large (Metroid Prime, Halo, etc.) are really the way to go. Painful, long, mid-action load screens are game killers and make me long to go back to the Genesis days.
I made the point above. But, moving large amounts of data from solid state memory to ram still takes a long time. Were you to make really large games on solid state memory, you're still going to have load times (most likely less time), but it would still take a while to transfer all the data from the cartridge to the system memory.

To get an idea, transfer 128 megs from your thumb drive to your HD. It may take a little less time, but you can be assured that it's a good estimate.

[Puffa469]

While I agree that optical media is better for game storage in most respects (I'll suffer load times for redbook audio and cutscenes and the other advantages of massive storage space), they are not better across the board. Optical media load times still have a long way to go. Hell, before CD there were no load times!

But people out there who think that cd/dvd's are just as sturdy as carts, or that carts arent sturdy must be smoking something! Carts are friggin indestructable! I have no fear buying any old nes cart thats been lying around out of the box for 20 years, can you say the same about playstation discs? I have cart games that no longer even have the cart, just a bare chip that I can shove into the cart port and guess what? It boots right up. As long as you understand that carts get dirty, and you know how to clean them, they will last forever. I have many nes carts with batteries in them, and they all still work to this day, and if they ever stop, I can replace them.

I saw a website once where this guy took an atari 2600 Combat cartridge and put it thru numerous torture tests. He boiled it, he baked it in the over, he froze it, the threw it out the window, etc... it booted up first time after every test, until the end when he had to actually crack the chip in half by driving over it with his car. What horrible disaster ends the life of most playstation games? Its probably being put into and taken out of the playstation itself.

Optical media gets scratched, and you can say 'take care of your investment' and I do, but like most people here I get alot of my games used, and i have no control of how the previousowners have treated the disc/s. Ive NEVER had to return a used cartridge game cos it didnt work. I have 2 disc games I need to bring back to eb staring at me right now. Hell, I got a complete Star Galdiator for $2 thats MINT looking yet wont load at all on any of my three playstations/ps2's. Oh wait, could that be another inherent problem with optical media? The fact that I ve had to buy more than one PS1/DC/PS2... because the lasers/drives on these things die? No ones even touched on that subect. My SNES will still be working in 20 years, will my PS2???

sorry for the rant, but optical media is not the endall saviour of gaming. It has as many drawbacks as it does advantages.

[daroga]

My SNES will still be working in 20 years, will my PS2???.

I've often wondered the same thing. Especially the early optical systems (Saturn, Sega CD, Playstation), what kind of a life span do they have? My NES is looking at 21 years now. Will my Xbox still work in 2022? I doubt that very much.

[Duo_Maxwell]

While I agree that optical media is better for game storage in most respects (I'll suffer load times for redbook audio and cutscenes and the other advantages of massive storage space), they are not better across the board. Optical media load times still have a long way to go. Hell, before CD there were no load times!

But people out there who think that cd/dvd's are just as sturdy as carts, or that carts arent sturdy must be smoking something! Carts are friggin indestructable! I have no fear buying any old nes cart thats been lying around out of the box for 20 years, can you say the same about playstation discs? I have cart games that no longer even have the cart, just a bare chip that I can shove into the cart port and guess what? It boots right up. As long as you understand that carts get dirty, and you know how to clean them, they will last forever. I have many nes carts with batteries in them, and they all still work to this day, and if they ever stop, I can replace them.

I saw a website once where this guy took an atari 2600 Combat cartridge and put it thru numerous torture tests. He boiled it, he baked it in the over, he froze it, the threw it out the window, etc... it booted up first time after every test, until the end when he had to actually crack the chip in half by driving over it with his car. What horrible disaster ends the life of most playstation games? Its probably being put into and taken out of the playstation itself.

Optical media gets scratched, and you can say 'take care of your investment' and I do, but like most people here I get alot of my games used, and i have no control of how the previousowners have treated the disc/s. Ive NEVER had to return a used cartridge game cos it didnt work. I have 2 disc games I need to bring back to eb staring at me right now. Hell, I got a complete Star Galdiator for $2 thats MINT looking yet wont load at all on any of my three playstations/ps2's. Oh wait, could that be another inherent problem with optical media? The fact that I ve had to buy more than one PS1/DC/PS2... because the lasers/drives on these things die? No ones even touched on that subect. My SNES will still be working in 20 years, will my PS2???

sorry for the rant, but optical media is not the endall saviour of gaming. It has as many drawbacks as it does advantages.

Okay then that's really just one long drawback you described (duribility), whether or not I agree with you, would you care to tell us all the advantages carts would offer (besides the already mentioned loading times debate I can't think of one)?

[wubb]

The lifespan of CDs/DVDs isn't really known. I've read some reports that they may only last a few decades before 'rotting', but then I've read other articles that claim rot is just a myth. I guess we'll know in a few decades to a hundred years or so ;)

As far as disc durablility... If you are an adult and take care of your shit you should never have a problem with scratching a disc so badly it will actually affect playback. The only time I've had a problem is with discs I've bought used that were fucked up when I got 'em. So I will admit that there is a distressingly large segment of the public that apparently can't handle keeping their discs in a case.

Honestly I don't really see the point of D-Skins. If you are someone who would care enough to put that on your disc you almost certainly are careful enough that you'd never scratch a disc anyway.

[Puffa469]

Okay then that's really just one long drawback you described (duribility), whether or not I agree with you, would you care to tell us all the advantages carts would offer (besides the already mentioned loading times debate I can't think of one)?

Well to me, durability and no load times are huge advantages. And I wasnt really arguing against optical media, for most types of games its the only way to go. But I feel that there are still genres of games that could be done on cart. Schmups and Fighters, any game without extensive cutscenes or soundtracks. Those classic game compilation discs could easily be done on cart.

I just think the issue is alot less black and white than 'Carts suck and CD's rule'.

[MadFlava]

Good points in your editorial. Never understood why Nintendo brought out the Micro when the SP was just updated with a brighter screen. The price of it just doesn't make sense with the DS being just a bit more and sports more features. I hate that the SP didn't have a head phone jack. To this day I still haven't bothered to get the head phone adaptor for my 3 year old SP.

[bmulligan]

The lifespan of CDs/DVDs isn't really known. I've read some reports that they may only last a few decades before 'rotting', but then I've read other articles that claim rot is just a myth. I guess we'll know in a few decades to a hundred years or so ;)

As far as disc durablility... If you are an adult and take care of your shit you should never have a problem with scratching a disc so badly it will actually affect playback. The only time I've had a problem is with discs I've bought used that were fucked up when I got 'em. So I will admit that there is a distressingly large segment of the public that apparently can't handle keeping their discs in a case.

Honestly I don't really see the point of D-Skins. If you are someone who would care enough to put that on your disc you almost certainly are careful enough that you'd never scratch a disc anyway.

I read that "rot" or oxidation was more common in the early manufacturing days and shouldn't be a problem with today's manufacturing, unless, of course, you scratch the porotective coating in the foil layer on the top of the disk exposing the aluminum to air.

When CD drives first came to the market, CD's came in a plastic caddy like umd's do now. You couldn't handle the actual CD and hence, wouldn't scratch it. I don't know why they don't do that still, but it would save a lot of problems from damage if they were to change formats now.

[Mookyjooky]

The future is the intarweb and harddrives

Also, the reason why CD media became king was "FMV". The games were still 30-120 megs regardless.

Now that graphics are good enough to use the actual game models, and music can be compressed, you dont really need more than a gig of info.

And if game consoles started putting stock textures and fonts on their game systems, new games would probably require 300 megs for music and data files.

Game consoles need to carry more stock images, fonts, sound sequences and AI... and bam, you change the gaming industry.

[thorbahn3]

I read that "rot" or oxidation was more common in the early manufacturing days and shouldn't be a problem with today's manufacturing, unless, of course, you scratch the porotective coating in the foil layer on the top of the disk exposing the aluminum to air.

When CD drives first came to the market, CD's came in a plastic caddy like umd's do now. You couldn't handle the actual CD and hence, wouldn't scratch it. I don't know why they don't do that still, but it would save a lot of problems from damage if they were to change formats now.


Most likely cheaper to produce. That and they make more money from you buying a second disc to replace the original you somehow damaged.

[Kayden]

I own a PS1, PS2, Saturn, DC, Xbox and GC. The only reason I had to replace one was because I took my DC apart to paint it, but I fucked up and it wouldn't power on. If you're having recuring problems with optical drives loading try dusting or vacuuming once a year. DRE's are 9/10 just dust on the laser. Compressed air fixes this with no problems.

While I agree that optical media is better for game storage in most respects (I'll suffer load times for redbook audio and cutscenes and the other advantages of massive storage space), they are not better across the board. Optical media load times still have a long way to go. Hell, before CD there were no load times!

But people out there who think that cd/dvd's are just as sturdy as carts, or that carts arent sturdy must be smoking something! Carts are friggin indestructable! I have no fear buying any old nes cart thats been lying around out of the box for 20 years, can you say the same about playstation discs? I have cart games that no longer even have the cart, just a bare chip that I can shove into the cart port and guess what? It boots right up. As long as you understand that carts get dirty, and you know how to clean them, they will last forever. I have many nes carts with batteries in them, and they all still work to this day, and if they ever stop, I can replace them.

I saw a website once where this guy took an atari 2600 Combat cartridge and put it thru numerous torture tests. He boiled it, he baked it in the over, he froze it, the threw it out the window, etc... it booted up first time after every test, until the end when he had to actually crack the chip in half by driving over it with his car. What horrible disaster ends the life of most playstation games? Its probably being put into and taken out of the playstation itself.

Optical media gets scratched, and you can say 'take care of your investment' and I do, but like most people here I get alot of my games used, and i have no control of how the previousowners have treated the disc/s. Ive NEVER had to return a used cartridge game cos it didnt work. I have 2 disc games I need to bring back to eb staring at me right now. Hell, I got a complete Star Galdiator for $2 thats MINT looking yet wont load at all on any of my three playstations/ps2's. Oh wait, could that be another inherent problem with optical media? The fact that I ve had to buy more than one PS1/DC/PS2... because the lasers/drives on these things die? No ones even touched on that subect. My SNES will still be working in 20 years, will my PS2???

sorry for the rant, but optical media is not the endall saviour of gaming. It has as many drawbacks as it does advantages.