Nintendo Switch uses cartridges, but not like the N64

Nintendo’s next gaming system will not use optical discs. Instead, the company is opting to fully embrace the technology it has used on its handhelds since the Nintendo DS.

Switch, the home/handheld hybrid Nintendo system that is due out in March, will use a new version of the company’s Game Cards to store software. After using discs for the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U, Nintendo is going back to cartridge-style solution that it used on its NES, SNES, and N64 systems. And while that might make many of you think of how third-party publisher despised working with carts on the Nintendo 64 back in the 1990s because they were more limited and expensive than the PlayStation’s CDs, the Game Cards that the Switch is using won’t have the same weaknesses.