The History of Cartriges

So I was reading this, and just felt the urge to respond. Here's what I wrote for him.

Seriously, I think a chill pill is in order here. Calling your readers Neaderthals? That's not cool. Sometimes, especially at 4 in the morning, it's not a bad idea to close your eyes, count to ten, and relax, rather than think about every possible detail of the world that could cause you stress at some point in the future. Like worrying about what format different devices are going to be in when they come out half a year from now. Geez.

Speaking of, this struck me as odd:

"Oh and the only thing stupider than backing Blu-Ray is probably
when Nintendo backed Cartridges. We all know how that ended."

Maybe it's just me, but here's how I see it. In the 80's there was only the cartridge, and that was good. There was Atari, there was Sega, and there was Nintendo, and for a time they all used only cartriges. Then Sega released the Sega CD add-on for it's Genesis. The device sold poorly, as did the 32-X expansion. But Nintendo just kept using Cartridges. Then Atari released the Jaguar, the "First 64-bit game machine", which used the new CD's. And that tanked, too. And Nintendo, she just kept using cartridges. And then came the true 32-bit games generation. Sega released it's ill-fated Saturn which managed to somehow place third in a field of only 2 32bit machines, and Sony entered the fray with its PlayStation, which also used CD's. Nintendo laughed, because it had seen all this before, and went ahead and put out the Nintendo 64. Despite being in cartrige format, Nintendo was still able to be successful, with titles like Super Smash Bros., Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, and the first 3D platformer in Super Mario 64. And Nintendo did laugh as it saw Sega struggle to stay afloat with the Saturn, and then the Dramcast after that, sealing the fate of Mario's long time nemesis. Nintendo was gracious in victory, though, and offered asylum for the Sonic games on its next platform. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though. For though Nintendo and it's cartridges had won the long haul over Sega, on the other side of the court, a new challenger was emerging. Sony's new system, using CD's, managed to attract a market that would have previously called itself "non-gamers", by virtue of prettier graphics and a higher quality of media. Nintendo saw this success and knew the day of its cartridges was over. The market had spoken. While innovative games and technology had won the battle over Sega, that alone would not be enough. And so, when Sony went to unleash its next expansion, the ever-so-creatively named PlayStation 2, and even the software giant Microsoft decided to enter the fray with it's own disk-loading game system, Nintendo relented and embraced the new technology. The game cube was born.

The story isn't over for cartriges, though. While they have all but vanished from the home (memory cards are simply highly evolved cartridges), cartridges still reign supreme in the handheld market. The Game Boy, since its inseption in the late 80's, has remained on top of other, more technologically advanced competitors, and to this day has yet to switch to a disk media. Meanwhile, Sony's PSP, finds itself paling in comparison to not only the innovative yet technically inferior DS, but also to the relatively ancient juggernaut of the Game Boy. The load times caused by the spinning of its Universal Media Disks, which are fairly far from being truely UNIVERSAL, along with a lackluster selection of games which are mostly ports of home console titles, are proving once again that disks are not always the answer.

Wow, that was fun to write.

It really was. It's all basically true, too. You can look it up if you want. ^_^ I DARE YOU!!!!

Well, know you know.
And knowing is half the battle.

G.I. JOE!!!!!