N64 Cartridges instead of discs: Retarded?

[Anonymous No.7399746]

Why did Nintendo insist on using cartridges in the N64 when they were obviously obsolete? Is there ANY benefit to using these pieces of shit instead of discs like PSX and Saturn?

[Anonymous No.7399756]

>>7399746
Loading times

[Anonymous No.7399757]

no load times. plus more durable

[Anonymous No.7399759]

>>7399746
>obsolete

[Anonymous No.7399769]

>>7399757
>>7399756
THAT'S IT? Loading times and children having a harder time smashing them? The VAST advantages of discs surely outweight loading times or fragility of discs.

[Anonymous No.7399794]

>>7399769
>The VAST advantages of discs surely outweight loading times or fragility of discs
Dont know about that. Only reason to use a disc was you could insert shitty 240p fmv cutscenes. The N64 forced developers to use in game models cutscenes which aged much better

[Anonymous No.7399805]

>>7399746
Load times.
Durability.
Piracy prevention (way before flash carts).

[Anonymous No.7399812]

>>7399746
Thanks mods

[Anonymous No.7399827]

>>7399794
It holds a fuckton more data. More data = more game. It's not rocket science.

This video shows the vast advantages clearly:
https://youtu.be/QgksfOYP0SI

[Anonymous No.7399830]

>>7399805
>way before flash carts
People were dumping games on floppies and playing them on consoles since the NES Days

[Anonymous No.7399838]

>>7399827
>More data = more game
who cares? not every game is a 2 disc 100 hour jrpg. Zelda OoT is the perfect length of a 3d game

[Anonymous No.7399840]

>>7399827
But developers didn't use that space for "more game". They used it mostly for shitty low-res cutscenes. Or other in-game video bullshit.
Sure, there were exceptions. But most of the post 16-bit retroscene is a wasteland precisely because optical media brought us too much lazy shit.

[Anonymous No.7399847]

>>7399830
The NES (nip version) had a floppy drive. Not too many other consoles did.

[Anonymous No.7399852]

>>7399827
>More data
oh yasss longer fmv's and cutscenes because I really hate gameplay

[Anonymous No.7399862]

>>7399847
Never heard of Super UFO eh faggot?

[Anonymous No.7399868]

>>7399852
The video clearly shows the proof

[Anonymous No.7399919]

>>7399868
Hmm yes, 3 disks worth of 1.2GB of cutscenes and just 16 MBs of gameplay, that's totally more game.

[Anonymous No.7399949]

>>7399746
>Why did Nintendo insist on using cartridges in the Switch when they were obviously obsolete?

[Anonymous No.7400132]

>>7399919
That isn't what the video even shows

[Anonymous No.7400145]

The fact that no one in here even mentioned the 64MB limitation of the N64's cartridges really shows you how flooded this board has become with newfags.

[Anonymous No.7400282]

>>7400132
CDtard cope.

[Anonymous No.7400289]

>>7400282

[Anonymous No.7400361]

>>7399847

[Anonymous No.7400385]

>>7400361
>>7399847
See
>>7399862

These cartridge copiers were very popular in Asia and some made their way to the US. You could dump a game to a floppy and play it on the console

[Anonymous No.7400394]

So they could have complete control of the production of N64 games and could force companies to pay ridiculous fees to print N64 games. This was one reason why the PSX was seen as so developer friendly.

[Anonymous No.7400406]

>>7399794
Yeah but when you have games like Megaman Legends, it"s pretty clear how the extra storage space improved the games visuals. N64's blurr filter was really shitty, and it's built into the hardware. The extra space would have also allowed them to improve the quality of textures, and prerendered backgrounds. I like the N64 version of RE2 but it looks pretty ugly.

[Anonymous No.7400458]

Carts are definitely more soulful than discs, that's for sure.

[Anonymous No.7400491]

>>7400406
Megaman Legends with the unnecessary garbage cut out is only 55 megabytes.
http://psx2pspeboots.blogspot.com/2017/10/megaman-legends-slus-00603-eboot-pbp.html

With N64's hardware compression and a mindset of trying to keep the rom lower sized rather than infinite storage it could easily have been reduced to 8mb or 16mg, ie. some of the smallest N64 cart sizes.

>>7399769
What do you mean "that's it"? Load times does not just mean the "loading" you see on the screen, N64 carts were so fast that they could essentially be treated as videoram.

Not that I believe OP doesn't understand after all these years, I think he's just another mentally unhinged lunatic.

[Anonymous No.7400512]

Because they looked into zip drive technology for the 64DD and realised it would cost too much, may have been easy to break copy protection, and zip drives be too unreliable long-term so had to stick with what they had and what they specialised in: cartridges and abandoned the DD at launch before it could really become a problem. If anything Nintendo had the right idea but the technology of the time was too far behind their ambition. Dial-up was a huge limitation and games were only getting bigger so they couldn't really do a satellaview for N64 or stick a HDD into an N64 and have "data transfer stations". Floppy disc just wouldn't cut it.Either of those would cost too much.
Sure they used mini DVDs and DVDs for the subsequent consoles due to the limitations of flash memory being something they couldn't work around for a home console, but they stuck to it through GBA, DS and 3DS and it's come full circle again with the Switch now that flash memory has mostly caught up.

[Anonymous No.7400597]

>>7400394
This. It had nothing to do with load times. Besides the fees, they would simply make less units of a game if they felt it was a direct competitor to a game of their own.

[Anonymous No.7400896]

>>7400289
Sneed's Feed and CDcope

[Anonymous No.7401147]

>>7399949
Flash storage has come a long way since the N64. They have 64 GB Switch carts now.

[Anonymous No.7401165]

>>7400289
You post this every thread.

[Anonymous No.7401345]

>>7400512
Flash load times are midway between cartridge and optical discs. If anything was a stupid idea it was the DD drive. I mean it was world class engineer level stupidity and seemed different at the time, not elementary school/4chan user level stupidity as clowns like the OP thinks.

[Anonymous No.7401353]

>>7401147
But no Switch games use 64GB cards as of now.

[Anonymous No.7401373]

>>7400406
>N64's blurr filter was really shitty
Not as bad as warped textures and wobbling vertices. Besides, most of the textures in MML look like literal pixel art on the PS1, which is not a good look for a 3d game.

[Anonymous No.7401375]

>>7399746
What was in the OP that got it deleted?

[Anonymous No.7401387]

>>7401373
https://desuarchive.org/vr/thread/7399746/#7399746

It was a gif of James Rolfe & The Rex Vipers, AVGNs new band.

[Anonymous No.7401525]

>>7401165
And no one reports.

[Anonymous No.7401576]

>>7399805
>Piracy
>>7399830
at the time this was a big reason, as Sony's games could easily be pirated as they were CDs. But Sony largely didn't care as long as they kept making games. Nintendo has always been a nitch market trying to make high quality games at the cost of making the platform a developer's nightmare.

[Anonymous No.7401624]

>>7399746
the stuff about loading times and durability was BS to shut media up. the reason they forwent it, is because they were just majorly burned by attempting to work out a CD drive for the SNES. they would have hd to have continued collaboration with both sony and philips if they went through with CDs, and im sure they were just itching to get out of that situation

that and im sure the normal nintendo factors of cheaping out on stuff, and having an iron grip over their proprietary hardware had something to do with it

as for the N64 DD, not a bad solution. it at least brought costs of media down. they couldn't hold more than the largest N64 carts, but they were way way cheaper- and could be completely rewritten. that would have been a big deal, and something that neither the saturn- nor ps1 had any leg up on. that is if the thing actually released on a timely basis

with the little software that did make its way out the door, you can see where they were going with it. level editors (F zero Xpansion), interactive worlds that save their states (doshin the giant), loading save data from one disc into another game (the mario artist collection)

but thats about it in the end. just chalk it up there with other failed accessories that could have been really cool had the circumstances not been awful

[Anonymous No.7401635]

>PlayStation CD-ROMs reportedly cost $1 to manufacture, while cartridges for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System cost $15 and Nintendo 64 cartridges reportedly cost more than $30
>Publishers had to pass these higher expenses to the consumer and as a result, Nintendo 64 games tended to sell for higher prices than PlayStation games. The maximum price of most PlayStation games was US$50, and Nintendo 64 cartridges could reach US$79.99 (equivalent to $125.47 in 2019)
>Game Paks took longer to manufacture than CDs, with each production run (from order to delivery) taking two weeks or more. By contrast, extra copies of a CD based game could be ordered with a lead time of a few days
>The largest storage size available for an N64 cart was 64mb, most games were around 4mb, PS1 CDs could store over 650mb. Size limitation meant that multiplats had to have their music heavily compressed and edited (like with the THPS games) and FMVs removed (like with the Gex games)
>But you don't have that few seconds of load times :)
The cons outweigh the pros by a long mile

[Anonymous No.7401653]

Nintendo wouldn't have to pay royalties to Sony for cartridges and would continue to control manufacturing them like they did in the NES and SNES days.

[Anonymous No.7401660]

>>7399746
More SOUL

[Anonymous No.7401770]

>>7399746
>>7399756
>>7399757
>>7399805
>>7400394
>>7401624
>>7401635

So for the loading time it's yes and no.
The problem of the loading times was on the first player such as PC Engine CD, Sega CD, Neo Geo CD etc which was extremely long !!
President Yamauchi did not want that !
When in 1993 Ken Kutaragi presented his project, Sony player was much more efficient, faster, enough to convince Yamauchi.

if the Sony-Nintendo contract was canceled, it was because of the royalties far too advantageous for Sony on games, films and karaoke at around $ 21 while Nintendo remained only on games at $ 13 ...

Therefore after this cancellation it was necessary to replace Sony. but who ??
The other manufacturer who supplied Sega, 3do, Neo Geo or Nec ??
There was Philips ... which had ultra long loading times like the first players.

Therefore back to square one. Can you imagine an N64 with games better looking than PlayStation and a CD player slower than PlayStation?
4 minutes to load a game of Street Fighter !!

Look the difference between Neo Geo CD and CDZ.
https://youtu.be/6u-tp2f_Pt8

[Anonymous No.7401792]

>>7401770
what

[Anonymous No.7401831]

>>7401792
A Nintendo 64 with CD would have more detailed textures and cutscenes (and cheaper), and therefore more data to load.

So with the first CD player technologies (like on the Neo Geo CD or CD-i), an N64-CD will take much longer than a PlayStation, very much.

[Anonymous No.7401840]

>>7399746
Nintendo probably wanted to use discs but burnt too many bridges with flat out awful business and management decisions when shopping around for the early technology in the N64. If you read the defense of why they went with cartridges it sounds like basic party line nonsense that people even repeat to this day.

>>7401147
cartridge games are not flash storage, flash storage is slow and cheap storage.

[Anonymous No.7401856]

>>7399746
>Is there ANY benefit to using these pieces of shit instead of discs like PSX and Saturn?
Vigilante 8 takes 26 seconds to load on PS1 & Dreamcast.
It takes 6 seconds to load on N64.
Games like GoldenEye load into a mission in about 2-3 seconds. Banjo can transition between areas in about a second depending on complexity. People are currently making a huge deal about the kind of revolutionary advantages SSDs bring. That was gaming on the N64.

[Anonymous No.7401872]

>>7399746
Cartridges allowed them to maintain a vice grip on manufacturing, and distribution and take in money from it. Everything else is bullshit they lied about and idiots repeat blindly. Same reason they went with mini discs on the GC

[Anonymous No.7401874]

>>7401856
N64 carts are interesting, many games started having compression to contend with too. Quake 1 takes a longer time to load on N64 than it does on Saturn because the levels are so heavily compressed.

[Anonymous No.7401880]

Loading times and it was more difficult to rip/pirate games with carts than with discs.

[Anonymous No.7401892]

>>7401874
That was essentially a budget problem. Third party developers started cheaping out. Getting the smallest cart size they reasonably could, omitting onboard save chips, etc. If the N64 had sold more units, maybe they would have justified spending bigger overheads of splashing out for a 32 or 64MB cartridge, but many resorted to 16MB or smaller.

[Anonymous No.7401893]

>>7401624 this isn't even to say that there isn't a benefit to having carts over CD. Like an anon said earlier- they could effectively be treated like video ram. It wasn't just a case of "oh boy the loading screen goes by quicker"

But I don't think this was the reason Nintendo ultimately made the decision they did.

I think the decision they made definitely influenced the types of games they made. Both in strengths and limitations.

The DS read speeds, are decently faster access than CD on the ps1 and saturn. They were faster to produce, and cheaper to manufacture.
Hell, nintendo could have gone the FDS route of having consumer rewriting stations, or even doing it entirely through randnet and having an online shop for rewriting game disks
Obviously the rewriting ability is it's greatest feature in terms of what it can benefit towards games.

I still think a large part (if not primary) of nintendo going with these magnetic disks over CDs holds true from the reason they chose carts in the first place, so see previous.

If there's one thing Nintendo has always been good at, is adapting their software to funky hardware limitations.
Even if the self imposed limitations come from cost cutting, and business decisions over what would be best for software development.

Was the zipdisk like format chosen over CD because it was better for games, or because they were still wary about CDs/price etc?
In the end I guess that's up for debate just as much as why they chose carts over CD

[Anonymous No.7401897]

>>7401893
>Like an anon said earlier- they could effectively be treated like video ram. It wasn't just a case of "oh boy the loading screen goes by quicker"
This isn't quite true. The N64 cart read speed was kinda garbage. But random access speed and general access speed was better than CDs.

[Anonymous No.7401903]

>>7400385
See
>>7400361

Why do zoomies reply like this? Do you think every post has to be a groupchat or something? Serious question.

[Anonymous No.7401914]

>>7401147
You think N64 carts were flash storage?

[Anonymous No.7401935]

>>7399746
Flash memory isn't obsolete and won't be for a very long time.

Flash memory >>>>>>>> optical media

Shit isn't even close. At this point a cart could hold far more data than a disc and have zero of the drawbacks, the reason discs are being used instead of carts is simple. Discs are dirt cheap to make and the companies are greedy fucks.

[Anonymous No.7402648]

>>7401935
>Flash memory
Please tell me you're retarded samefag and not another fucktard who doesn't know the difference between flash and mrom.
Anyway, there are plenty of advantages to optical media over flash. You're just ignorant of them so can't make a serious comparison. So sad.

[Anonymous No.7402663]

>>7399746
The N64DD should have been a VCD module.

[Anonymous No.7402669]

>>7401770
It's basically this.
They burned their bridge with Sony out of greed, and couldn't find a viable alternative in time.

They fucked themselves, and then Sony fucked them even harder by stealing the entire market from them for almost a decade.

[Anonymous No.7402747]

>>7401892
Sounds like a limitation of cartridges bit them in the ass.

[Anonymous No.7403160]

Anyone happen to have that $50 coupon for fangamer they arent gonna use?

[Anonymous No.7403502]

>>7399769
I'm not too sure, but I think I heard that 3rd party devs had to go through, or rather pay, Nintendo for cart manufacturing. And considering carts were much more expensive than discs...

[Anonymous No.7403579]

>>7401624
>the stuff about loading times and durability was BS to shut media up
What the sacriligious FUCK are you talking about?

Those were two huge reasons why they did it and they were confirmed over time. You have no evidence OR logic to state these weren't a major part of it, just a theory on how you knew about the internals going on at the time. Unless you worked at Nintendo or Sony at the time and were a part of that process you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.