Nintendo files patent for disc-less console (cartridges?!?)

On February 10, 2015, Nintendo Co., Ltd, filed in the United States a patent application for a "Stationary Game Apparatus, Game Apparatus, Game System, Recording Medium and Speed Control Method". It was published yesterday, on August 20, 2015, and isbased upon and claims the benefit of priority of the prior Japanese Patent Application filed on February 20, 2014. The title of the patent in itself sounds of course not very interesting, but the description and claims are quite peculiar. Additionally it describes a controller with a display screen as well as Speed Control Processing.

SOURCE

And so it begins.

Also, it appears as though that Memory Card might be their primary format this time... meaning, they're going back to 'cartridges' (or, well, modern flash/solid state memory). Either that, or it's just an SD card, and they're going all digital.

I wonder how this would turn out.

"Controller - Display Unit"

Yep , still the Wiiu tablet.

I think they will combine it with the 3DS , that might explain the "Memory Card" thing on the plans.

Could just be BC with the Wii U Pad (which would be necessary if the console were backwards compatible with the Wii U, as Iwata hinted at), or it could just be the handheld being used as the controller for the console.

@charizard1605: To be honest, I would like to go back to cartridges on NX if you will. Cartridges aren't that expensive to make now in today's standards then it was back in the 90's. Less loading times and hard to pirate so I'm cool with going back to cartridges but I do wonder if 3rd parties are cool with cartridges on a console now then they are for handhelds.

@charizard1605: Well , these plans are only 2 pages out of 8 , so if we had the other 4 it might explain more.

@Ant_17: I didn't copy the complete thing because it is inordinately long, but you can read a full technical description at the source link :)

I got a headache , but if you know who Kondo Masahiro and Nagaoka Tomotsugu is , they're the inventors.

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220150231511%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20150231511&RS=DN/20150231511

Here is the Official Patent sheet.

Hmm... Interesting. What's the most amount of space an SD card can hold? Hopefully the screen is not expensive. I also notice that there is an internal HDD and a place to connect an external HDD.

Poll: You think NX platform/s will be cartridge based, no BRD? (69 votes)

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/poll-you-think-nx-platforms-will-be-cartridge-base-32296661/

LOL If it happens, I guess a lot who voted there would be surprised.

We'll see.

It sounds much more likely that it's going to be a device focused on digital distribution.

Them going back to cartridges is at this point on the borderline of impossibility, it's far too expensive.

Says there.. I guess that's possible and the MMC is an expansion but I have a feeling that MMC is a game medium (game cart)

[0003] In recent years, high-speed communication such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) or optical communication has widely been spread. Such high-speed communication is utilized to allow a server apparatus or the like to distribute a game program to a game apparatus. When a game program is obtained through communication, a user can enjoy playing a game using a game apparatus without purchasing a recording medium such as an optical disk.

@charizard1605: if thats the case I hope we get a mario maker sequel. I can't imagine a game like that working without a touchscreen

Would make sense. Everything is going streaming/digital download these days. Cutting out physical media would make the device much cheaper, smaller and more power efficient.

Hell, I'm surprised there is still a market for Blu-ray's with Netflix doing 1080p like a boss.

This is what it's sounding like to me too.

Digital distribution is definitely going to be a big part of it, especially since they have stated before that an account based relationship with their customers is what they are heading towards.

Eh? For context, a 32GB SD card today is $18- and that is me purchasing one individually, in bulk, the cost of them would be negligible.

They seem to have done fine with the 3DS on 2011 to present with $ 40-50 games. I think they can do it with 8-16 GB with the similar margins specially if sold at $ 50-60 in 2016/2017.

As compared to a Blu-Ray disc? Negligible was the wrong choice of words, there is no quantity of SD cards that Nintendo could purchase to come even remotely close to the cost of a Blu-Ray disc.

Well, I meant negligible standalone, not compared to an optical disc, of course.

However, if Nintendo could keep the licensing costs reasonably low (or swallow the extra hit themselves to subsidize third parties), this could still be a thing- and far more likely now that flash and solid state memory is so cheap than it would have been back in the N64-GCN eras.

Agreed. It's more than likely backwards compatible.

That would be awesome to have cartridges back, although I don't know how a cartridge with the same harddrive space as a Nintendo Proprietary Disc would be in terms of cost efficiency.

I think blu-rays are a good way to get a copy of a movie you want to have if it ever goes off Netflix. Or in some cases it's just not anywhere to Stream. I was trying to watch Spirited Away a week ago and as far as I could tell, the only (legal) way to watch it was to buy the blu ray (or DVD). So now I have exactly one blu ray movie.

But yeah, agreed on the console making sense. Seems like it'd make more sense if you wanted to keep 'physical' games, to put them on SD cards or USB drives.

Well, as I said above, flash and solid state memory is stupidly cheap these days- a 32GB SD card, for example, is just $18 on Amazon right now, and that's it's RRP. On a bulk, these things could be cheap enough that the extra cost wouldn't matter in the larger scheme of things (especially if Nintendo were to swallow whatever extra cost these had over an optical disc, and subsidize them that way instead).

@charizard1605: True. But the question becomes what do the Nintendo Proprietary Discs costs?

A little over the BRD licensing cost, I would imagine, which in turn are a little over DVD costs, which in turn are a little over CD ROM costs.

Now, we know that CD ROM licensing was ¢35 per disc- let's assume an additional ¢10 per disk for DVDs, and then an additional ¢30 for BRDs (since those are much higher density). That brings us to ¢65 per BRD. If we add on another ¢5 for Nintendo's format, we get ¢80 per disk.

Of course, all these numbers are made up, with no grounding or basis in reality- but they are just meant to be a hypothetical demonstration of what licensing fees may be like today.

And specially if they're considering media interoparability with a handheld.

@j2zon2591: That would be another thing- they could easily pitch the licensing fees as half of what it really is, because it would be an effective license for two systems at once. So even if it comes to $1.10 a cart, it would still come down to ¢55 per system, which is reasonably low.

Gross! Nah uh! This, & DD only is where I get off.

How big would the difference be from the Xbox/ps4? Those two run their games from the hard drive.

That'd be quite an appeal if they only pay for one licencing for both a handheld and a home console. Not really related but reminds me of PC purchases that an be used on multiple form factors xD

If nintendo goes with that, I'm interested to see if there'd be much cannibalization between the handheld and the home console units.

@j2zon2591: I don't think that would matter to Nintendo- they are trying to sell an ecosystem now, instead of devices.

Doubt they are using carts because it is too expensive. It's like $2-3 to mass product a blu ray disc max. What's the cost to do the same with a 50GB cart? It's definitely more than that.

That's true. It can only grow larger relative to just having either one. Also would mean they could focus on games in a way than dividing resources to Wii U and 3DS. If that were really the case, I hope the next gen 3DS is powerful enough since it'll be the lowest common denominator with development. Looking that a lot of games including sports and sims can run even on 360 (RoTR) and relatively low end PCs like the Surface Pro 2s (trudging Witcher 3), decent console tech/software for the next gen handhelds might not be that limiting.

I said some time ago that I think they should start putting games on SD card like cartridges... perhaps they will.

Nah. As I've said repeatedly throughout the thread, flash memory is very cheap these days- it wouldn't be that much more expensive than a disc, plus it is scaleable and flexible, something that a disc is not.

Would personally love for Nintendo to go back to cartridge based games.. miss those days

@ladyblue said:Gross! Nah uh! This, & DD only is where I get off.

@davillain- said: @charizard1605: To be honest, I would like to go back to cartridges on NX if you will. Cartridges aren't that expensive to make now in today's standards then it was back in the 90's. Less loading times and hard to pirate so I'm cool with going back to cartridges but I do wonder if 3rd parties are cool with cartridges on a console now then they are for handhelds.

How big would the difference be from the Xbox/ps4? Those two run their games from the hard drive.

I was hoping Nintendo was going for cheaper and I mean by cartridges since they are now cheaper to mass produce and possibly the cartridges games to be lower then Blu-Ray. Though I'm interested if 3rd party will jump back to cartridges after all these years. Also cartridges have way less loading times then Blu-Ray and hard to pirate them.

Okay.... Well good thing they will have external HDD's, and SD cards. I don't mind cartridges, they have advanced so much with the DS and 3DS, plus it takes away a lot of load times. However, the risk is the cost of physical copies vs digital copies.

I don't see them using a display-unit for BC, I mean they didn't force us to have a Wii remote designed controller for the Wii U, just forced us to buy Wii remotes or use the ones we owned. I assume the same would be for this.

As long as I have a physical disc or cart to play a game I don't care. However if they are going digital only I will not support them.

Physical format all day.

I think BC will be a problem for those that have Wii U titles. Unless Nintendo release a proprietary Disk Drive just for physical copies.

It may just be an expansion to the WiiU like the Expansion Pak for the N64 was. That would be the best way for this thing to go over well with the people that already bought a WiiU and not lose their trust

The question i think Nintendo should answer is "Is it future-proofed?"

That can only end well.

Netflix is all but useless if you are an avid movie watcher. I pretty much just use it for TV shows.

I still see blu-ray as my main option for movies and I have over 1000 of them. In my case, I'm sure at least half of my movies are not available online at all (not legitimately). Of course now more and more of them are probably on iTunes or Vudu or other UV service. But I still haven't gotten into "buying" movies digitally - I'd rather just buy the disc - and use Netflix and Amazon prime to supplement that via streaming.

Really my main issue with digital movies is the same as it is with games - digital price is generally worse than physical!. I'm not paying FULL PRICE for a thing I don't really own, and can't sell if I want to part ways with it. I have no problem with buying uber cheap things digitally - I just don't want to pay $20 for a movie digitally, or $50 for a game download when the physical products are the same price. I will gladly pay $2 for a movie or $5 for a game digitally once it's part of a flash sale.

It's cheap, but not nearly as cheap as blu-ray disc. Although it could have flexibility as to costs depending on the game. If they could fit games on 8GB those might not be bad (cost wise). What do 3DS games use - like 1GB? But what about multiplat games that are now pushing 50GB? To have the same content as the other consoles, they'd have to use 64GB cards.

If a blu-ray costs $3-5 to fully package, that 64GB might cost $10-15 (or possibly) more. It's "cheap" relative to what flash memory used to be, but it still means a cost premium based on the cost of manufacturing - and that cost goes up the more memory the games requires. I'm guessing the premium would be at least $10 for full sized games. Are 3rd parties going to take that risk? Seems unlikely. IMO if Nintendo goes this route, they are pretty much resigning their console to the same fate. No 3rd party support. Perhaps this is just Nintendo saying "f'it" with 3rd parties - and maybe they figure their own games will mostly fit on the cheaper 4GB or 8GB cards anyway. I mean if cost were no object I do think fast flash media is far superior, but cost *is* an issue and knowing Nintendo they are probably cutting corners. If it is indeed flash cards, I'd be shocked if their games are going up to 64GB.

3DS game carts start at 2GB and theoretically go up to 32GB (though 8GB ones are the largest ones that have been manufactured yet).

I am not doubting that a, say, 64GB cart would be expensive- but $10-$15 expensive? Highly doubtful. Even old cartridges in the N64 era didn't go for as much (they went for $3.50 each). Flash memory today is cheaper.

Agreed.

Nintendo 64 used like 32MB cartridges LOL. How is that relevant to this discussion? I'm not sure what per *MB* memory costs were then, but obviously even without memory prices you are comparing 32MB and expensive cartridge - to a 700MB and cheap to produce CD-ROM drive that basically destroyed that bygone era of cartridge gaming (for better or worse).

For current gen, we are talking 64GB flash memory as a likely requirement. Considering the retail price of 64GB is still like $20, I don't think my $10 guess is too far off. Hey, if they could do it and games were still $59.99 I'd love to see it. Technologically speaking, flash memory would be superior solution. Also the difference isn't as glaring now as it was back then. It is *almost* there. I just think that in the real world pretty much ANY cost premium would make 3rd party balk at the idea, so whether it's $5 or $10 doesn't really matter - it's more than the negligible cost of replicating optical discs. Also I suspect we would see alot of Nintendo games going "cheap" and using 4GB or 8GB. Flash cards makes me think this really is a handheld/console hybrid, despite Nintendo's denials.

I can't believe people don't get how SD cards for gaming work. Vita and DS games are $40-$50 for a reason. This isn't going to a CVS and getting a 16gb SD for $12.

You neeed to format and program an SD disc from the ground up, this is excluding the ability for mp and dlc which would require further customization and you would have to developers the game around it as well

Putting Ridge Racer or Pokémon on 3DS is one thing putting games like GTA and Halo is is different story, we would be putting up $80 or more for games at some point. This is different than going to Walmart and getting SD card from company a for $10.

SD for gaming is expensive. There are advantages, but price isn't one.

Im very excited for what Nintendo has up their sleeves for their next system.

Looks like the NX console and handheld will share the same format. You buy one game and it will work with either device. So in a way the games themselves will be a hybrid format instead of going the hybrid hardware route.