It is a sad day (or was a sad day) in the videogame industry. Recently Nintendo (the king of the console and handheld systems) released the Gamecube. This should be looked upon as a prosperous day in history when Nintendo's "bittage" reached the triple digits. But alas, something was immediately absent the moment I peeled open my copy of Nintendo Power. That was the cartridge.

Now, I know very well that the Gameboy Advance uses cartridges, albeit small ones but, that is not what I'm ranting about. The major consoles are the one that I am picking on. We now have only a few "alive systems". These include the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, and Game Boy Advance. The Gameboy color is still hanging on with a few more 3rd party releases. As for the N64, it is now dead. And with it died the cartridge.

All three of the consoles mentioned above run of discs. That's right, thin, scratchable, discs. What happened to the cartridge? I'll tell you. Back when Gamecube rumors were floating about, the head of NOJ announced that the marked demand had shifted from cartridges to discs. So the Nintendo, the last surviving cartridge maker dropped their gray plastics and started ordering discs.

It truly is a sad day in videogame history. I'm sure we all have fond memories of hearing the click of a cartridge sliding into place. Or the wind recoil from your breath when you blow into the contacts (no sarcasm intended). These days are history for console systems. And the GBA is our final hope of hanging on to our beloved cartridge. With heavy hearts, we must now say goodbye. This is the death of the cartridge. Henceforth, the day the cartridge died.

(c)BPZ 2001