A lot has been said over the last few months about the possibility of Nintendo using cartridges for the NX– in fact, this is something that seems to be backed up by substantial evidence. It would make sense for Nintendo, too, especially since flash memory is now cheap and commoditized- meaning that all the disadvantages of cartridges no longer hold, but the advantages all do.
And now, more evidence is emerging that the NX may in fact be using cartridges. According to some trademark listings discovered by some very dedicated posters on NeoGAF, these filings for for the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild indicate that Nintendo may be using cartridges for their enigmatic upcoming system. filings specifically see to mention game cartridges, in addition to optical discs- and some digging done by these NeoGAF posters reveals that cartridges are listed in all Nintendo filings for 3DS games (the 3DS does use cartridges), but not for Wii U games (Wii U uses optical discs). The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is releasing on Wii U and NX- we know the Wii U uses only discs, so the cartridges can’t be referencing that. Does this mean that the NX will be using cartridges, and the trademark listing is hinting at that?
It is also possible that the ‘cartridge’ portion of the listing refers to the long speculated upon portable version of the NX. The NX is speculated to have a handheld component and a console component, both sharing the same games and software– so it is possible that it will be the handheld version of the NX, which will be running Zelda from a cart, while the console version still uses discs.
It’s hard to know, for now. Until the NX is revealed, and we know what it is, all we can do, really, is speculate.
