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"One of the fun aspects of a cartridge-based system is that you are literally plugging a PCB directly into your system. Thus, you can put extra coprocessors, of
by YooLi 15y ago
"One of the fun aspects of a cartridge-based system is that you are literally plugging a PCB directly into your system. Thus, you can put extra coprocessors, often digital signal processors, right inside of the cartridge. This gives you an extra edge against your competitors' titles. The most popular SNES coprocessors were the SuperFX for polygon rendering and sprite rotation (used in Starfox and Super Mario World 2) and the DSP-1 for 3D math (used in Pilotwings and Mario Kart.)"
Very interesting. I never thought about this even though I've recognized the differences between games. I just attributed it to better game software, but it could literally have been better hardware available to certain games. You can't do that with CD/DVD/downloadable games.
- daeken 15y agoThis is why the NES had the insanely long life it did. Every game was able to provide custom hardware (called 'mappers') to offload computation. I've said for a while now that the next generation of consoles will go one of two routes: completely downloadable titles, or PCI-e-based cartridges. I'm inclined to think the latter, despite the evidence to the contrary. It's just such a huge benefit, and they love shipping physical items. This would also largely eliminate piracy.
- RainFlutter 15y agoA general system expansion slot would make a lot more sense. Think the RAM expansion on the N64. It'd be silly for each new game to have to provide its own extra processors or RAM in its own (expensive) cartridge, and console piracy is close enough to dead already.
- sliverstorm 15y agoconsole piracy is close enough to dead already What? When did this happen? Last I checked there were successful exploits for every major console on the market.
- Prisen 15y agoPS3s are only vulnerable with old firmware, and hacked ones can't play new games nor play online.
- ericd 15y agoThe cost savings of downloads are just too ridiculously huge to really think about going back to manufacturing circuit boards. Beyond the marginal circuit board cost, there's a huge physical goods infrastructure that just doesn't have to exist when you go with downloads. Servers are a good bit easier to manage than manufacturing plants and shipping infrastructure.
- jbronn 15y agoSony thought servers would be easy to manage.
- icefox 15y agoYah, but what if physical goods gave you that edge over your competition? That neat wow cool factor that all of the other 'download' devices don't get because they can't change?
- joenathan 15y agoNo, that will never happen. Businesses don't work that way.
- comex 15y agoBut in a download-only world, physical goods would be perceived as rather inconvenient to obtain compared to the norm, somewhat negating the effect. (In PC gaming, this is arguably already true.)
- InclinedPlane 15y ago"Neat, wow, cool" is insignificant compared to the advantages of digital distribution. Done right (see: valve, humble bundle, even xbox live to some extent) it enables you to slash incremental delivery overhead for each copy of a game, which means that the purchase price can become almost entirely profit margin. Which further means that you can cut prices down to levels that will massively increase the volume of sales and increase your total profits, especially on older titles. Higher profit margins, lower operating costs, and the ability to massively extend the profitability window of a given game (from only a few months to a year to more than a decade) make digital distribution extremely advantageous for anyone who can take advantage of it properly.