Get ready to buy some larger memory cards for you Flash cart

tennisgy · January 28, 2007, 03:19:10 PM

QuoteLarger sized carts coming.

Way back when the Nintendo DS was revealed, Nintendo veep Reggie File-Aimes mentioned that cart sizes could go up to a gigabit in size. Or, more specifically, 128 megabytes. Several high-profile games have hit that point in just two years of the system's life, and more ambitious developers will demand more space for their products. With full-motion video sluts like Square Enix fully on-board the Nintendo DS train, Nintendo will likely put two and four gigabit cartridge media (256 and 512 megabyte) on the development order sheet in 2007 to encourage PlayStation-like game presentations with enormous rendered cutscenes, introductions, and endings, as well as voice-overs and full-on licensed soundtracks. These carts would, of course, be made at a premium, with the prices passed down to the consumer in higher game costs.

Good for games...Bad for me :lol:

Source: http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/759/759123p1.html

sonicwind · January 28, 2007, 03:25:43 PM

don't worry microsd prices are really cheap already. You can get a 2GB for $50 shipped from newegg now thats pretty darn cheap compared to when i bought it in september for 100

jmr · January 28, 2007, 03:34:20 PM

like it says in the post you "quoted" from this is pure speculation
original quote from here
http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/759/759123p1.html

tennisgy · January 28, 2007, 04:28:26 PM

Quote from: "jmr"like it says in the post you "quoted" from this is pure speculation
original quote from here
http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/759/759123p1.html

My bad, i forgot to give them credit
editing

Quote from: "sonicwind"don't worry microsd prices are really cheap already. You can get a 2GB for $50 shipped from newegg now thats pretty darn cheap compared to when i bought it in september for 100

Hmmm...I Might be able to get an R4 and 2GB for my birthday in July

Perseid · January 28, 2007, 05:31:12 PM

Don't quote me on this because I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember hearing that the theoretical limit on DS cartridges was 256MB.

Koji · January 28, 2007, 09:23:46 PM

I wouldn't be surprised to see a 256MB cart by the end of the year, but I doubt we'd see 512mb carts, at least not till nearer the end of the DS life cycle (compare N64 cart sizes which steadily climbed to 256mbit in the first few years, then sat at that for the longest time, and only a few 512mbit games came out nearer the end of the consoles life span)

sonicwind · January 28, 2007, 11:04:28 PM

and you might as well buy those instead of buying more microsd's

Hi · January 29, 2007, 07:11:45 AM

If game developers need more memory how come they can't just

1. make diffren't cards (card1 card2)

2. use the gba slot. a disk and a cartrage would hold twice as much memory as just one disk.

dantheman · January 29, 2007, 10:55:28 AM

Quote from: "Hi"1. make diffren't cards (card1 card2)

Because it would be a major inconvenience for both the manufacturers and the users, and it probably wouldn't be much cheaper than simply producing one large cart.

Quote from: "Hi"2. use the gba slot. a disk and a cartrage would hold twice as much memory as just one disk.

You'd get a maximum of 32 MB on a single GBA cartridge, and it would be very expensive to produce. DS cartridges are much cheaper to produce than GBA ones and have a much higher storage capacity. http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/NAND_and_NOR might have some info to better explain why this is.

hijoputismo · January 30, 2007, 12:15:53 AM

¿is it true taht dragon quest ix will come in two cartridges?

Koji · January 30, 2007, 01:04:34 PM

Quote from: "hijoputismo"¿is it true taht dragon quest ix will come in two cartridges?

Very unlikely. It'd be a pain to transfer the save data from one card to another. It's not like a disc based system which uses an external memory card to keep save data and Nintendo would be very squeamish of having people "live swap" game carts as that could potentially lead to damage to the games or the system.

Larger carts are almost certainly a given however.

Hi · January 30, 2007, 05:12:07 PM

Quote from: "Koji"
Quote from: "hijoputismo"¿is it true taht dragon quest ix will come in two cartridges?

Very unlikely. It'd be a pain to transfer the save data from one card to another. It's not like a disc based system which uses an external memory card to keep save data and Nintendo would be very squeamish of having people "live swap" game carts as that could potentially lead to damage to the games or the system.

Larger carts are almost certainly a given however.

Just thinking about how it could be done... what if save data was kept in a gba cartrage? Or even better... what if it was kept in the memory expansion pak?

They could also use passwords rather than save data, although passwords are annoying.

Koji · January 30, 2007, 05:22:31 PM

Passwords for an RPG would be horrible... take a peak at Golden Sun sometime to see why.

It could be done without any sort of expansion, but either way it would probably end up costing more money to make 2 128MB carts then it would to make a single 256MB card.

hijoputismo · January 30, 2007, 07:57:49 PM

been reading a bit, and looks like it was only a rumour.

Koji · January 31, 2007, 12:49:05 AM

It is a rumor, but it's a very credible one. Nintendo throughout it's cartridge based system history has released larger cart sizes later on in the systems life. SNES games for example started as 4-16mbit, and by the end of the system's lifetime had games released as large as 48mbit.