> > What was the downside? Cartridges rocked. They were sturdy too. > > > > The only downside I remember was their limited capacity, but that was a product of > > the time. > > > > > > Interested into hearing why people think they sucked? > > Basically capacity, production costs and program faults by dirty terminals. However > even if cartridges were to make a come back it doesn't matter anymore. Why? Because > the license still needs permission from a server to run on a console, also it has to > download and read from writable memory everything again for DLC or update purposes. > In the end as much as a cartridge was considered a complete fully tested game, > current development standards won't allow to shine the few advantages cartridges > have. Even cartridge additional hardware doesn't matter anymore because software > doesn't exploit hardware at maximum.
I agree cartridges don't make any sense today. I made the switch to downloading games some time ago, so basically any physical media is a step backwards in that regard.
But speaking in the past tense, they really were great - and the optimal solution, imo. My use of them was in the era of the Atari 2600, and they far surpassed alternatives at the time - which was either tape, or five and a quarter inch floppies - which were slow and much more prone to error.
Must say, I'm struggling to think of a single cartridge that failed because of dirty terminals, even the ones I sometimes use now (I still have a 2600 and a bunch of games). I'm sure it happens, but with minimal care cartridges last.
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