Why Nintendo Uses Cartridges While PlayStation & Xbox Use Discs

Cartridges may scream “old school” in almost every way, and they’ve mostly been replaced by discs in modern gaming. Discs are cheaper to produce and have more storage space available, but Nintendo recently went back to use cartridges for the Nintendo Switch. Playstation and Xbox continue to print their games on discs, but Nintendo’s portability makes printing games on discs less simple.

Cartridges were the primary form factor for home console video games for several decades. Nintendo and Sega continued using them for platforms like the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, but they were also prevalent in handhelds like the Game Boy, GBA, and the Sega Game Gear. Even after platforms like the PlayStation popularized discs in the home console market, Nintendo’s handhelds continued to use cartridges, which are still being used to this day.

While Nintendo has never used discs in a portable device, Sony tried discs with the PSP before turning to cartridges with the Vita. These PSP games were stored on a UMD, which is a mini disc with a plastic case securing it to protect it from damage. Placing the UMD into the unit would open the case and aline the disc with the disc drive magnetically, which cleverly reaped the benefits of both the disc’s expanded storage and the durability of the cartridge. If Sony could accomplish this a decade before the Switch’s release, why hasn’t Nintendo used discs portably as well?

Why Nintendo Uses Cartridges Instead Of Discs

Nintendo has been manufacturing cartridges since the ’80s with the NES and the Game Boy. While multiple Nintendo home consoles like the GameCube and Wii adapted discs, Nintendo’s handhelds have always used cartridges – and they have each performed greatly. Nintendo has always dominated the handheld market using cartridges, and it was likely an easy play to continue using similar technology with the Switch. Cartridges are more advanced now, so Nintendo can hold bigger files on them than it could in the past.

If Nintendo has proven anything in the past few years, it’s that the company has a deep hatred for piracy, as evident by Nintendo’s lawsuits against piracy sites. Cartridges are much harder to pirate than discs, since they can easily be placed in a disc drive and ripped onto a computer. And while there are multiple advantages to using discs, disc drives compromise the battery life of a portable because the device needs to devote power to spinning a motor. Cartridges also have the advantage of faster load times, which could also make them preferable to discs. They might not be perfect, but cartridges benefit the portability of the Nintendo Switch in a way that the discs used by PlayStation and Xbox simply can’t.

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