An honest question: Anyone miss cartridges?

[DudeistBelieve]

So I've hooked up my N64 today... Attempting to play WWF No Mercy has been a chore do to the amount of glitches that keep popping up. That said, I'm still pleased as punch I have the same cart that was given to me on my birthday all those years ago.... conversly, I don't have any of the PS1 games I bought over the years. Those that I do have are scratched to shit. I also still have draws filled with SNES/GENESIS/NES carts...

Conversly, had I not sold them all off to buy a 360 I would have had a decent PS2 collection. So I eventually did learn how to respect disc based games.

I'll be honest, I missed the days where you could play with a console and not be afraid of it falling over and scratching the disc. I miss the days of selling games to gamestop and not being told "Oh this needs to be refurbished."

Cartridges were the shit.

 

[Keoul]

In a way.
For the REALLY old games they were all fine and dandy but for the newer ones I'm concerned about battery life, after a few years all my saves have died. There's nothing more crushing than finding a game you loved during your childhood then moments later finding that all your progress has been erased forever...

 

[LetalisK]

Cartridges made me hyperventilate from blowing on them all the time.

Seriously though, cartridges are neither here nor there with me. I would say I prefer discs because you can put more on them, but fuck discs, I go as digital as possible, baby! My hard drive is my cartridge.

 

[Foolery]

Not really. Cartridges were ok. But I did just realize the other day that I regret selling my Gamecube. I took decent care of it. Didn't have that many games for it though. Just Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Smash Bros. Melee, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, and Twin Snakes.

 

[Soulrender95]

With the rise of more and more affordable SD card's at bigger sizes, I could really see a return to a form of cartridges in the future they just need to make sure they don't run into the Ps Vita problem where it still has loading times in some games.

I really do miss the snes days where you had a game with no loading times and the cartridge sometimes contained an enhancement chip that added new functionality to the machine without requiring an expensive add on (I'mma looking at you sega) but the change to cd's was necessary at the time being cheaper and easier to mass produce in great quantities and that's probably why we won't see a change back to cartridges until the 128gb SD cards become just as affordable.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Not really. The 3DS still uses cartridges and recently my Pokemon Black save became corrupted, rendering the game unusable.

I agree with the disc problems though. I have a ton of 360 games I can't play anymore just because they're scratched in some way. However I am really enjoying the PS3's use of Blu-Ray discs with their scratch resistance. They all still look as good as new.

 

[Gearran]

In all honesty? Yes. Yes, I know cartridges have inherently less storage capacity than discs do, and I know all the problems that come with cartridges (I remember huffing and puffing myself blue to get those damn NES cartridges to work right). However, with that out of the way, there's something to be said about the aesthetic of a cartridge that is remarkably enjoyable. Discs all look the same, and while cartridges have a similar design across a platform, each one has it's own look thanks to the cartridge art (or, in the case of the Zelda games, GOLD!). Cartridges are more durable than discs, too. You don't have to worry about scratching up a cartridge; even the new scratch-resistant Blu-Ray discs can be damaged with enough scratching, while you literally have to cut a cartridge open to damage the components inside.

I guess there's also a nostalgia factor in it for me as well. I grew up with cartridge formats; my favorite games (Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, etc) are on cartridges. There is a visceral pleasure of plugging a cartridge into the console that using a disc simply can't match.

 

[Amakusa]

Not really i don't miss them. You want to know how big and bad cartridges can be space wise? I own a neo geo home system. Basically they played the same game as the arcade games neo geo produced in the late 80 early 90s. Those things are as big as my textbooks at uni ><

 

[DugMachine]

Honestly yes I prefer cartridges. Discs seem so artificial but I liked to pretend when I was younger that my little fantasy worlds were stored in the cartridges. I don't know, it's mostly a nostalgia thing and I find it satisfying being able to handle it rougher and not like it's some delicate flower.

 

[Bellvedere]

I still use cartridges on 3DS?

I don't think I've had a scratched disk since PS1 (I was a kid) and I had a 360 this gen. I'm more likely to lose a game than scratch it.

but fuck discs, I go as digital as possible, baby! My hard drive is my cartridge.

This. I wish the console e-stores would sell for competitive prices. I would love to just buy games from the nintendo store but it's too hard for as much as a $20 price difference.

 

[piinyouri]

They were certainly more durable.
That aside, I can't say I miss them.

 

[AngelOfBlueRoses]

No, not really. I take good care of my discs, which are PS3 and bluray so they're pretty scratch resistant just to pick up the slack for the few moments where I am a derp, or I'm straight up digital on my PC. Whereas cartridges make me blow out my lungs just trying to get them to work. Ugh. Tried to play my N64 the other day, spent five minutes just huffing and puffing.

And I really, really worry about what you're doing with your console if you're worrying about it falling over on you, but I suppose that's the 360 for you. My PS3 Fatty has never once fallen and neither did my PS2 Slim before that.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I constantly use cartridges for my 3DS. They are way better than discs. Way more solid and durable.

 

[Doom972]

Cartridges did have much shorter loading times than discs. The problem is that for modern games to fit on a cartridge you have to use something like SD cards, which would make the games much more expensive.

 

[Altorin]

I'm nostalgic for them. But would I ever want them to go back? I really don't think so.

 

[lechat]

ya know if they utilized SD card like storage but didn't have to make the chip as small as a typical sd card cartridges may be closer to the price of CDs to produce
yes i miss cartridges. the oldschool feel of clicking a disc into place before loading up a game just isn't the same as these days where we delicately place a disk into the tray

 

[Joffas16]

I love cartridges, they're durable, last for an incredibly long time and loading times are never a problem and I just think that they're cooler to own. I wish consoles still used them.

 

[Glongpre]

Aw hell no. Always getting rusty and dusty and shit.

 

[ChrisCarTheMarauder]

Oh god, YES, I toooooootally miss cartridges:

*Having to dick with it for 3 minutes till you got it in just right

*Having to perform surgery with a que-tip to get dust and random bullshit out of there

*Blowing on 'em

*Them being easy to ruin

*Fuck no I don't miss cartridges, the closet I'd ever use to one the days is a DS game, and those are %0x better

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Yeah, I really like my carts and it's kind of a shame they're gone but hey, if discs are cheaper than so be it. I also miss how there's virtually no loading though that's more a problem for some games more so than others...like Final Fantasy IV.