What would games look like today if they were still on cartridges?

[DudeistBelieve]

I don't know about the rest of you but I miss the days of cartridges. It was just easier, as oppose to the extra small effort it takes to put discs back in their cases (This is also the reason none of my PSX games survived my childhood)

But I was just thinking now, the graphics of cart games, especially on the N64 were always low quality and they couldn't do things like FMVs.... well maybe someone with the technical knowhow can tell us what todays video games would look like on a modern version of the carts.

 

[J Tyran]

No different to how games look generally, ROMs and flash memory have come a long way. Do games you get from Steam/PSN/XBLA look different to the same game you get retail? Nope its just data, cartridges would be small and about the same size you see on 3DS and PS Vita games. The media would be slightly more expensive than a BD or DVD but not as expensive as they used to be in the past.

 

[njrk97]

using my amazing and completely unique deductive and stealth skills along with my understanding of quantum physics I managed to from a parallel universe where in they still used cartridges obtain this:

Spoiler

They appear to call it a DS cartridge from intel and it seems to be very popular going through several iteration of the machine it is used.

As for the Graphics

Spoiler

Highly colorful and advanced very similar to our own discs

Sorry couldn't pass this up. So yes in one form cartridges still exists but frankly cartridges were never cost effective so it makes sense that they would change, if we did use cartridges though i would imagine it would look the same, maybe slightly less load times.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I really don't see how it's more of an effort to put a disc back in its case than putting a cartridge back in its case. Or are you saying you don't have to do that with cartridges? Because that really depends on where you live. It's quite humid where I live now and any cartridge left outside its case is going to have its circuitry rot fast (I lost most of my GBA games because of that).

And I'd agree with the others, you wouldn't see that much of a difference in graphics.

 

[Fireaxe]

I can tell you one thing games would definitely look less like: the fucking loading screen.

I think you'd end up with Wii-esque graphics, which honestly worked fine with the right art style.

 

[Racecarlock]

I've got 16 gigabytes on something the size of my damn thumb and I probably bought a drive that's already outdated.

So if I were to hazard a guess, we'd be able to fit 64 GB on something the size of an n64 cartridge today. In other words, 8 whole games on this current gen. We'd probably either have a lot more content, or going by the latest next gen console previews, shader and lighting effects out the ass with no attempt to really innovate unless that innovation doesn't have shader and lighting effects out the ass.

 

[Hoplon]

I've got 16 gigabytes on something the size of my damn thumb and I probably bought a drive that's already outdated.

So if I were to hazard a guess, we'd be able to fit 64 GB on something the size of an n64 cartridge today. In other words, 8 whole games on this current gen. We'd probably either have a lot more content, or going by the latest next gen console previews, shader and lighting effects out the ass with no attempt to really innovate unless that innovation doesn't have shader and lighting effects out the ass.

Size on a N64 cartridge? a Terra byte (flash storage SSD) but I doubt most people want to pay £500 for the game.

They are on disks because of price, not bigger storage or speed of access.

 

[piinyouri]

Probably not like this.
Unfortunately.
http://geekologie.com/2013/03/modern-video-game-imagined-as-atari-cart.php

 

[daveNYC]

A regular blu-ray holds 50GB, so just from a storage space standpoint, there'd probably not be much difference.

 

[sanquin]

Cartridges are basically small hard disks with their own circuitry inside. A disk is just plastic with information burned onto the surface. So disks are a lot cheaper to make. So I'd think if cartridges had still been the norm, we'd have more expensive games, and maybe poorer graphics and better aesthetics.