Random quotes of mine from Discord on 2019/09/19. If you want references, ask, but they're mentioned.
TL;DR -- I can certainly believe to some degree that Nintendo "sure did like the FDS", but in absolutely no way did the upper echelon at Nintendo Co. Ltd. bet everything on it to the point of abandoning cartridges. Yamauchi did not have a history of behaving that way, and he shunned floppy/disk concepts from the beginning (which is why the FDS to me is still somewhat of a surprise). Miyamoto is/was always a "dreamer", and that's part of what makes him a great game/character designer. I also shouldn't have to mention that
from 30+ years ago. But let's also not forget the NES FDS (US patent 4783182, filed August 1986 -- keep that date in mind when reaching the end of the below) was abandoned by Nintendo (and that SMB and Zelda were both being developed in parallel by R&D4/Miyamoto in parallel).
I have not yet gotten around to transcribing the FDS "section" of Game Over due to its length (several pages), but I do plan on it.
13:57] koitsu: i haven't read any evidence from reputable sources -- if you have some, hand it to me, i'd love to read it! -- that either:
a) Nintendo intended SMB1 to be "the last game on the system". If that was the case, they wouldn't have invested in bringing the Famicom to the United States. Pick up this book and read it:
https://jdc.koitsu.org/gameover/b) Nintendo planned on going pure-FDS. Their original statement/goal was never to do a disk drive, then that changed later (explanations for why weren't explained), but nothing in that process I've read said they wanted to go full-disk -- Yamauchi repeatedly voiced concerns over piracy using disk-based media rather than cartridges. See same page above (though I haven't finished writing up the section on FDS, it's very long). If they had planned to go pure-disk, they would've made that decision prior to / alongside doing the NES, and that obviously didn't happen.
13:59] koitsu: Let's also not forget Nintendo was heavily invested in several companies all relating to semiconductors and general IC production.
13:59] koitsu: Cartridges were their main focus, disk changes a lot of that, even despite things like the RAM adapter,
14:15] koitsu: it is very likely that given what was going on with Miyamoto at the time, given his role at that point, he probably felt that he wanted to do something "memorable" for cartridges and then "do more amazing things" with the disks system.
14:48] koitsu: the entire contents of the book i linked basically refute the claim {edit: I'm referring to what's being claimed in the subject}. but this is kind of backwards logic; we should be asking the people claiming that SMB1 was "supposed to be the final cartridge" for actual published references backing up that view
14:50] koitsu: i'm strongly inclined to believe it's a bullshit claim, with people somehow thinking that because Nintendo did the FDS that it was "the end-all to cartridges", which really everything i've read so far says otherwise. FDS was just "another option". i have another undiscussed book to read/skim, so i will do that, but yeah.
15:07] koitsu: so the other book i just skimmed (and read several pages of) is I Am Error, which covers some of this. there's absolutely no statement, including anything implied, that Nintendo planned on stopping cartridge development. they did seem to put a lot of focus on FDS as "the next thing", but it kind of failed. the book is too long on this subject -- i'm talking quite literally 60 pages on the matter -- but there's no such statement.
15:08] koitsu: in fact, repeatedly mentioned is the fact that Miyamoto was responsible for both teams doing Zelda and SMB simultaneously. don't forget that Zelda came out on FDS.
15:09] koitsu: mappers, particularly UNROM, came out around 1986 due to the FDS "failing" in several regards -- easily piratable games (and there's hard proof of Nintendo knowing this was happening), shoddy disk drives/belts, disks prone to problems due to exposed magnetic surface, magnets, and other maladies (customers REALLY hated loading times, which were sometimes 15+ seconds between areas/levels), in combination with literally 3 ways in hardware to try and circumvent copy protection. so to me, based on all of that, it seems pretty obvious Nintendo did not hedge all their bets on FDS
15:10] koitsu: also, they did apply for a US patent on the NES version of the FDS, which was either rejected and/or abandoned. need to re-read that part to be sure, but regardless they did not do it.
15:11] koitsu: i suspect timing (in the market, FDS failure rates, etc.) matters here more than anything, literally down to the month or even week
15:12] koitsu: so that said: i can certainly see Miyamoto at the time thinking "wow, the FDS offers so much new stuff, so much more capacity/capability in exchange for these other issues/complications that carts don't have" and thinking that maybe it was The Future(tm). but i strongly doubt that as of 2010 he would look back on history and say "so SMB1 was intended to be the last cartridge Nintendo made"
15:14] koitsu: the fact he was responsible for both Zelda and SMB being developed simultaneously in parallel i think acts as a strong refute to the original argument, but if twisted, might be used to "prove" the opposite view. but i tend to think there's no way the guy who was responsible for both games simultaneously thought that in 2010, retrospectively, that SMB would be the final cart game. there's just no way.
15:18] koitsu: oh and as for the patent {edit: referring to NES FDS patent}: i misunderstood what was previously written. apparently the patent was approved, but they abandoned the entire thing. if cartridges "were coming to an end", why would they do that in a market they were about to dominate?
15:32] koitsu: so i guess i'll end my rant saying: i'll go out on a limb and say hogwash. if Miyamoto truly thought the FDS would be the end to cartridges at some point during SMB/Zelda development, it was probably a very short-lived thing: probably a feeling within a year. here's why i think that:
* FDS was RTMd Febuary 1986
* Nintendo did CNROM and UNROM mappers alongside Makaimura/Ghosts 'n Goblins which was RTMd September 1985
- BootGod DB says it came out May 1986
- I Am Error says, quote, Within four months of the Disk System's launch, Capcom released Makaimura
* Nintendo filed patents for MMC1 in the US in 1987 says I Am Error
- USPTO patent 4,949,298 lookup says November 1987
* Zelda release dates:
- JP FDS release Feburary 1986
- US cart release, BootGod says June 1987, Wikipedia says July 1987
- PAL cart release November 1987
15:32] koitsu: so as i said, i suspect any "hype" over the FDS in any way, including internally, was probably very short-lived at Nintendo, as much as they may have wanted it to pan out.