By Jorge Ba-oh 
19.12.2010 
25
According to the manufacturer of the upcoming 3DS cartridges, the new cards would be able to hold up to a maximum 8GB.
Taiwan-based Macronix is back at the helm and is the current producer of the DS range, which can carry 64 megabits to 4 gigabits (8-512 MB). With the 3DS requiring a pair of images and the potential for far superior visual/sound quality, the minimum size for each 3DS cartridge is said to be up to a hefty 8GB - just under 2 DVDs or a double sided DVD.
Via Kotaku
Seeing this, I wonder if Nintendo's next home console will use cartridges/cards again. Think about it, Nintendo never wanted to go the optical disc route. They were forced to do that because 3rd parties had a viable alternative with optical discs with advantages being cheaper production costs and larger storage capacities. Now that those two factors are no longer a major issue, it would make sense if Nintendo went back to cartridges/cards, abandoning a medium that they never wanted to support in the first place.
I'd actually be glad if they brought back cartridges. Why? Loading screens. Scratched discs. Using cartridges makes neither of those things problems anymore.
Production costs for the medium would ruin third party support again on a home console though, especially when they could toddle over to Microsoft and Sony and produce disks for much less.
8GB would be very conservative in some ways as theres no need for a "limit"
The Wii can, after all, take 64GB SDHC cards.
Disks have to have fixed sizes predetermined, but cards/carts don't. They can just get bigger as they get cheaper to make. Use a size appropriate for your game.
I don't think it's a rumour, this sounds like what Iwata said back at the after E3 conference. If I remember correctly, didn't he say that at launch the carts could go up to 1GB, and extended to 8GB in the long run ?
Let's not forget the cost, yup. For a very fast SDHC card these days (class 10) it's costly. I bought my 16GB SDHC class 10 card for 26€ last month, and I consider myself lucky to get it at that price. Now Nintendo might not get them at the same production price, since they'll have to have them produced in massive amounts, but that's still costly, really.
I don't see the cartridge medium come back to a home console anytime soon, or at least not in any form that we already know about. But that holographic thing Nintendo invested a lot into all those years ago ? i can see that happen though 
.
wait wait wait
8 GigaBYTES or 8 GigaBITS?
xXxTin Can ManxXx said:
wait wait wait8 GigaBYTES or 8 GigaBITS?
I think they mean Bytes, Bits would be too small to make a fuss about.
Still, I reckon this could be true, the technology should be getting cheaper, so it shouldn't be too long if the cartridges are too expensive now, to produce them in the future.
Yeah it's bytes, you can already get 4gigaBIT DS cards (512MB) so having 1GB and 2GB around launch for 3DS makes sense.
Edit: I don't think this story is correct I think it was said there will be a 1GB minimum and a 2GB max around the systems launch with room to expand (as prices decrease) to a maximum of 8GB in the future.
( Edited 19.12.2010 17:19 by Jimmy2000 )
Surely the next generation of home consoles is going to heavily feature downloading games? Then again, it would be a brave company that relied on downloads exclusively.
I think in 2 years the time would be good for a downloaded/streaming based system in Europe and Japan.
But the US would be a different story giving how poor and fractured their broadband support is.
Also, Nintendo really's need to get everyone more comfortable with digital distribution. The economic and environmental savings are huge, but the physiological objections are hard to get past.
Nintendo needs to push WiiWare a lot more now, and also push online tv and other services on the Wii.
Get people used to not needing physical disks to watch/play stuff.
Their also needs to be legal garenties. If our hardware breaks, or Nintendo goes bankrupt we should still be able to play the games.
It would make sense for portable consoles to offer downloadable games, as it would save space on the portable, make it less hassle to lug all your games around with you, and to compete with iPhone/iPad games.
However, the PSPGO launched that way and it was derided by games and journalists, and basically everyone. I have a feeling that disks/cartridges will not be able to fully go away anytime soon (except for the PC).
Darkflame said:
I think in 2 years the time would be good for a downloaded/streaming based system in Europe and Japan.
But the US would be a different story giving how poor and fractured their broadband support is.
I live in Belgium, and most ISP subscriptions still limit the amount of data you can download per month. Not so long ago, the most widespread type of subscription was still limited to 8GB per month. Only since July 2010 they decided to rise it to 25GB (which is quickly drained by anyone watching HD videos on Youtube). And we're talking about a 41.75€ per month subscription, which is 35.42�£. On top of that there's still the rental fee for use of the phone line to pay.
Bottom line... no, Internet in Europe isn't well developed everywhere, nowhere near as good as in Japan, so a download only platform would be a nightmare for people living in remote places (we can't all move and go live in huge cities just to be able to download games either)
8GB is loaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaads. 
The only reason I want Christmas to be over is because every single day we get a little closer to getting our hands on our sweet 3DSs
GreythaGreat said:This. Hurry up and go, Christmas!
The only reason I want Christmas to be over is because every single day we get a little closer to getting our hands on our sweet 3DSs
Finally, Nintendo have figured out a way to beat Game Boy piracy - just make the games so fucking big nobody can be bothered to download them.
Martin_ said:
Finally, Nintendo have figured out a way to beat Game Boy piracy - just make the games so fucking big nobody can be bothered to download them.
*applauds* Nice, you finally made me chuckle.
I'm glad the sizes are upped bigtime, means that whatever games people'll be bringing over would probably need less cuts. Yay~
Btw does anyone know how much extra data it takes to make a 3D image as opposed to a 2D one? (Specific numbers are not required, I'm just wondering how significant it is to the size of the carts).
Cheesing it up said:
Btw does anyone know how much extra data it takes to make a 3D image as opposed to a 2D one? (Specific numbers are not required, I'm just wondering how significant it is to the size of the carts).
I believe no extra space is required specifically for 3D games. I could be totally wrong on this, but I believe that all the 3D is doing is giving you two perspectives (i.e. there's two cameras instead of one) on the same assets. For instance, you walk into a room. There's a chair in the room. The two cameras will give you two different perspectives on the chair, which allows for the 3D effect, but its still the same chair. You don't need two versions of it.
Which is why 3D takes more processing power and memory -- it has to process two views in realtime, but there's still only one asset.
No extra space whatsoever indeed.
Its just rendering a second view from a different angle. Don't even need more texture-memory, its just like rendering to a bigger resolution processing wise.
--
PMD said:
However, the PSPGO launched that way and it was derided by games and journalists, and basically everyone. I have a feeling that disks/cartridges will not be able to fully go away anytime soon (except for the PC).
Thing is, the PSPGo was terrible because it was just a PSP with the UMD removed and replaced with downloads.
It was the exact same system spec and controll wise, but it couldn't take the backcatalogue of already out games!
You couldn't even convert physical games to downloads (like they originaly said).
If Nintendo did something like that it would be disastrous, no question.
But a whole new system...which would take different games anyway...wouldn't be quite the same situation imho.
Kafei2006 - I was basing it on the UK, Germany and the Netherlands which was my experience. I wasnt aware the situation was that bad in france. You dont need that great a connection remember, if Nintendo actually used WiiConnect24 things could download overnight! I think even a 1MB/s would be do-able in that situation.
The problem is more bandwidth caps.
Martin_ said:
Finally, Nintendo have figured out a way to beat Game Boy piracy - just make the games so fucking big nobody can be bothered to download them.
Hasn't this been Sony's method for some time now
Joe (guest) said:
Hasn't this been Sony's method for some time now
Sony's method is making sure that nobody gives a shit about PSP games to start with, thus ensuring that no significant PSP piracy takes place. I can't even remember the last time I saw someone walking around with a PSP.
Wow....he said the MINIMUM size ranges from 8Gigs....I know Square will comeout with the best & highest ones for their FF titles. MAN I hope they use the biggest Cart possible for the 3DS remake of FF6!!!!! Nothing but the best for the BEST FF in the series.
Kefka was done VERY well in Dissidia so keep that voice actor Square.....just try to make Terra sound a little more confident with a deeper voice. She sounded WAY too timid in Dissidia which she was NOT in the original Final Fantasy VI.
Terra is fairly timid at times in FF6, lying on the ground/bed moaning about something.
( Edited 24.12.2010 02:31 by Jimmy2000 )
I would love to see 3D porn on the console, 8GB is huge enough for it. I am sure there would be a market for this sort of material for sure...
Sean T (guest) said:
I would love to see 3D porn on the console, 8GB is huge enough for it. I am sure there would be a market for this sort of material for sure...
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