The Death of Cartridge Collecting

[ThirdMarioBro]

Rant time. I may be an editorial columnist, but here around my crew, I say whatever I please, using as crude of language as I want.

Here's the deal. Sony and Microsoft think this is the last generation of consoles to have disc drives. They're full of sh*t, and we all know that. End of rant. Now, moving on. Discs are here to stay, and each new successive format retains the 3.5cm compact disc width for the sake of consumer convenience. Nintendo fu*ked up making the GameCube discs 1.5cm, but they found a solution with drives that can read format of multiple sizes. Problem solved. That means our disc collections have long term value....bleh, don't even know what any of this have to do with my topic....oh yeah.

I'm abandoning cartridge collecting completely. I haven't bought an old one in over a year or more. I used to grab some old console games here and there that I missed, but subconsciously over time I realized there is no point anymore. Each console literally was its own format, none of which were inter-compatible, and that means they are dependent on the existence and functionality of their own hardware. My Genesis died a long time ago. The cheap copper contacts on the cartridges rub away after repeated insertions. Half my Genesis collection is dead, and I see no need to replace them. I've noticed my Super NES games starting to get a little funky from time to time, so I stopped playing them. The NES...... Squeezing those carts into that tight top loader wears out their cheap-ass contacts 200% faster. I patched everything up as best I could, and put it all away. I didn't keep them all in the same place as my Xbox 360 and Wii when they were hooked up, because I only used them occasionally, but now I see no point to keep them hooked up at all. Its all aging, and its all going to wear out eventually.

I'd like for my children to get to play with the relics of my childhood, because I see different eras of my life when I look at each of those old machines. I'd like to see my children's faces when I look at my old consoles too.

With discs, age is never going to be a problem with the future, so I'll continue to collect games from consoles. There is no friction, and no contacts, and no deterioration with proper care. Electronics seem to be keeping the standard CD size, so there is no worry to those who collect CD games. Besides, you can just rip the stuff if the electronics industry wants to move on (looks sneakily at PSP). As for my old cartridge games, Virtual Console + Xbox Live Arcade = win. There's something about the thought of having all of my Nintendo collection on one box, even if a few will be missing. Of course there will be lots of games that are too tangled up in legalities to release ever again (coughRarecough). Some aren't worth anything other than historical value now (coughgoldeneyecough) and some are. For those special few, we've got the home brew community to watch our back.

Regardless, I feel the age of the cartridge collector has officially passed. The days of the silicon chunks contained within a plastic shell may be gone, but we can now rest assured that the data that was on them will live forever; long after when the copper plating has finally rubbed off those old silicon boards.