Nintendo has recently filed a patent for a discless game system. The system would use memory cards to house its games, rather than discs or any other optical media. In fact, this would be, essentially, a return to cartridge based media, which was something Nintendo was known for in the days of the NES and SNES.
The patent is for “An example system includes an internal hard disk drive storing a program and/or data, a communication unit transmitting/receiving a program and/or data via a network, and a processor executing a program stored in the hard disk drive to perform game processing. The example system is not provided with an optical disk drive for reading out a program and/or data from an optical disk.”
It’s also possible that these cards would only hold a portion of the program. A large part of the system had to do with communicating with servers. So perhaps these cards could include partial games, with the rest of the game data being read from the internet. Doing so would cut out of a lot of Nintendo’s fanbase, however.
It is as of yet unclear whether or not this patent has anything to do with the NX, but it’s possible, considering Nintendo has already said that will be its next big console outing. The NX is supposed to connect all Nintendo’s prior consoles, so perhaps they will be shipping legacy games on memory cards. We will have to wait and see.
Source: NeoGAF