What's best: Cartridge, CD-ROM...or cassette??

[DoraemonTheCat]

I voted for carts as they other two are easily damaged

[Antiriad2097]

What are you lot doing with your tapes and discs to ruin them so? The only scratched discs I have are because other people scratched them.

[necronom]

I can't ever recall a tape, 5.25" disk, 3.5" disk, CD (not CD-R), or BluRay disc that has stopped working. I've had some tapes that were a bit difficult to load from the start (usually copied ones), or a game on disk on the Amiga that had errors (also copies), but none I know of have stopped through age. I recently loaded a game list program off a C15 that I'd saved circa 1983.

I doubt any of my CDs have a single mark on them. I never touch the surface, so they are probably all clear of fingerprints, too. Not sure why they would get scratched.

If the PS1 had used carts, I'd never have bought one, and I very much doubt it would have been the success it was. I'm astounded that people are voting for such a limited and over-priced storage medium.

[clarance]

If the PS1 had used carts, I'd never have bought one, and I very much doubt it would have been the success it was. I'm astounded that people are voting for such a limited and over-priced storage medium.

That's a great point - looking back, I never considered buying any cartridge based system, purely because of the cost of the games (that and maybe the fact that the consoles really didn't do strategy games very well). At the time that I owned an Amiga I could never quite work out why anyone would buy a Megadrive or a SNES when the equivalent software on the Amiga would be at the most, half the price.

And thinking about it now, the purchase of a Playstation for me was with the idea of affordable software very much in mind. Don't think I ever would have bought one if I knew I would be paying £40-plus for every game on cart.

I think people voting here are tending to forget the prohibitively expensive cost of the cart. Disks and CDs were very liberating in that respect.

[crusto]

Your right Clarance. Carts became less and less viable as the consoles became more capable. But for me were untouchable in their prime. Overall the Amiga or ST flavour of most cross format titles would play a distant second fiddle to its console counterpart. Except for strategy games of course (although megalomania on SMD was ace). I think the same could be said for the 8 bits, as long as you ignore the 2600 lol.

I don't think carts were prohibitively expensive either, except for Neo Geo. But that was niche anyway. You just had to consider more carefully what you bought, that's why the likes of CVG and mean machines were practically essential back then. Lots of titles would receive discounts eventually too. So if you weren't a day one merchant it wasn't much of a problem. Plus you could eventually pirate carts, when the likes of the magicom eventually surfaced. I never did though.

I would happily pay an extra £10/15 for current gen game today if it was in cart format and came with instructions!

[RodimusPrime]

If the PS1 had used carts, I'd never have bought one, and I very much doubt it would have been the success it was. I'm astounded that people are voting for such a limited and over-priced storage medium.

That's a great point - looking back, I never considered buying any cartridge based system, purely because of the cost of the games (that and maybe the fact that the consoles really didn't do strategy games very well). At the time that I owned an Amiga I could never quite work out why anyone would buy a Megadrive or a SNES when the equivalent software on the Amiga would be at the most, half the price.

And thinking about it now, the purchase of a Playstation for me was with the idea of affordable software very much in mind. Don't think I ever would have bought one if I knew I would be paying £40-plus for every game on cart.

I think people voting here are tending to forget the prohibitively expensive cost of the cart. Disks and CDs were very liberating in that respect.

How many times do we have to confirm that we have taken price into account. Its sad really, everyone is allowing everyone else their own opionion apart from a couple of crybabies who seem unable to grasp the fact that a lot of people prefer carts. Get over it already.

As for the point above, Yes you are right about strategy games, but as for equivalent software, Sorry but what are you talking about. Fact is if you liked the likes of Sonic, Mario, Streets of rage, Probotecter etc then the amiga simply did not really provide anything for you.

The games it did provide that were the same ( UN Squadron, Turtles, Streetfighter 2 ) were horrid and badly made and were stunted by a one fire button system. So No, sorry, but there waqs no Equivalent that you speak of. Fact is at the time the Amiga did a certain style of games well, but to get decent examples of other genres on a consistant basis you quite simply needed a Console.



As for price, I remember buying the likes of F-Zero and Super tennis for 37.99 from special reserve and The japanese Versions of Contra 3 for 35 pound. The likes of UN squadron and castlevania 4 you could order for 29.95 if you waited a little.

As I recall most new big box amiga games were around the 24.99 mark.

[Matt_B]

The point is that the Amiga is an edge case. If you were playing multi-disc games on it, you were right at the tail end of the floppy disc era. The technology used in its 3.5" drives was introduced in 1982, after all, where 16K cartridges were bleeding edge.

Rather, for the bulk of the floppy disc era, capacities were much greater than cartridges, loading times were very quick (unless you had a C64) and if a game came on multiple discs, the chances are that it was so enormous that no contemporary console could have handled it.

Despite all that, I can still think of plenty of good reasons why people might prefer carts. Each to their own.

[clarance]

If the question was "which format was the easiest and quickest media to load up", then I guess carts would have it, at a pinch. But that's not the question -it's what's best... now that, it would seem to me, is a subjective term at best, hence we have the debate...

To my mind, carts were far too expensive, so they were the worst format. Simple.

One other point that I don't think has been mentioned, the inability of cart systems to provide for save points in games and hi-score saves before the arrival of on-cart battery back up (and what a joy that is now-days with extinguished and leaky batteries...) and memory cards (another expense). Not a problem with tapes and disks...

As for price, I remember buying the likes of F-Zero and Super tennis for 37.99 from special reserve and The japanese Versions of Contra 3 for 35 pound. The likes of UN squadron and castlevania 4 you could order for 29.95 if you waited a little.

As I recall most new big box amiga games were around the 24.99 mark.

Yeah, I remember Special Reserve, bought most of my Amiga software from them - see, they would reduce the prices of those big box Amiga games to around £5-£10 usually... if you waited a little...

[crusto]

I didn't know you could save your game on cassette systems. Was this the case for CPC and 800XL?

[RodimusPrime]

leaky batteries?

My Zelad, Marioworld etc still have my original save files 20+ years later. I still shudder at the thought of how often my Championship manager save disk failed or was corrupted. same with a lot of floppy saves.

see how we can go censored for tat. just let people decide what they want.

[clarance]

With cassettes, you could save your high scores, save your position in text adventures, and I'm guessing the same for RPGs and strategy games as well, but my C16 didn't really have any of those sort of games , so others will have to confirm that.

[clarance]

leaky batteries?

My Zelad, Marioworld etc still have my original save files 20+ years later. I still shudder at the thought of how often my Championship manager save disk failed or was corrupted. same with a lot of floppy saves.

see how we can go censored for tat. just let people decide what they want.

I've lost count of the amount of Pokemon carts I've had to hack into to change the battery... and I still have my original C16 save tape for Winter Events - that would be almost 30 years old...

[RodimusPrime]

With cassettes, you could save your high scores, save your position in text adventures, and I'm guessing the same for RPGs and strategy games as well, but my C16 didn't really have any of those sort of games , so others will have to confirm that.

Never knew that. I never game across that option on my CPC or friends spectrums or C64. Still I imagine the process would be extremely cumbersome.

[RodimusPrime]

leaky batteries?

My Zelad, Marioworld etc still have my original save files 20+ years later. I still shudder at the thought of how often my Championship manager save disk failed or was corrupted. same with a lot of floppy saves.

see how we can go censored for tat. just let people decide what they want.

I've lost count of the amount of Pokemon carts I've had to hack into to change the battery... and I still have my original C16 save tape for Winter Events - that would be almost 30 years old...

Pokemon carts are notorious and are not really a good representative of the majority of carts.

[Matt_B]

With cassettes, you could save your high scores, save your position in text adventures, and I'm guessing the same for RPGs and strategy games as well, but my C16 didn't really have any of those sort of games , so others will have to confirm that.

Never knew that. I never game across that option on my CPC or friends spectrums or C64. Still I imagine the process would be extremely cumbersome.

It's as cumbersome as putting a tape in, pressing record, and following a few on-screen prompts, which usually just takes a few seconds.

Not many arcade games have save to tape as an option but, as said, it's a pretty standard feature for strategy and adventure games. I've still got saves for games like Psytron, Lords of Midnight, Football Manager, etc. that'll still load thirty years on.

Saving to disc or battery backed cartridge is more convenient, I suppose, but anything beats password saves.