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Recent news reports have shown the Nintendo Wii is running first in home console sales, with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 running second and third, respectively. Has anyone else noticed these sales figures mimic the amount of advertising you see for each one? I do.

Take the cable service at my house for example. I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but where I live there are numerous commercials for the Wii and its games. There are less for the 360, and I don't think I've seen one for the PS3 since "Metal Gear Solid 4" launched.

Not only does this reflect sales numbers, but it also reflects the primary target audience of each console. The Wii has gamers like myself already committed to its products, but the mass marketing on TV helps it reach that casual gaming audience that's been its core buyer base from day one. Most casual gamers don't spend a lot of time on sites such as this one or with their faces planted in a gaming magazine, so TV is the obvious means of connecting with these consumers. The 360 and PS3 have less TV advertising because their consumer base is more likely to be reading this blog right now or thumbing through a gaming mag.

Now, since more people are likely to watch TV than pick up a magazine the Wii has generated more consumers. These casual gamers see these spots, along with word-of-mouth from current owners, as big influences in their decision to purchase a Wii. They're not as likely to buy on reputation, like 360 and PS3 owners might.

However, the quality of commercial or advertisment, in my opinion, appears to have an inverse effect on console sales. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the Wii spots are awful, but there's nothing innovative about two strange guys in a SMART car showing up at your door to play video games. Side note: This does, however, go along with the philosophy that made the NES so popular in the 1980s - presenting the Wii as a "family" console. Remember how on the back of the box the console came in was a picture of an overly-happy family enjoying a game of "Super Mario Bros.? It's the same concept.

The spots for the 360, meanwhile, were more aimed at hardcore gamers and featured a sense of the console's muscle. But they are shown few and far between.

As for the PS3, I'm guessing they're relying mainly on sites like this one and gaming magazines, along with its established user base (not working, though) to draw gamers to the console. Which is sad, I must say, because some of those early PS3 spots were actually well-done. My favorite was the one where the Sixaxis controller makes the balls of goo rise and slams them into the wall. Who knew you could push a video game console without showing an actual video game? The PS3 was featured in a Southwest Airlines spot, too (Remember the one where the guy throws the controller through his buddy's TV? My bet is they weren't friends anymore after that.). But despite some good TV spots, the PS3s sales are behind.

So whether or not you want to believe it, advertising plays a vital role in anything we buy, including video games. Companies establish a target audience and do their best to lure those people into buying their product. The amount of advertising, and where it shows up, makes it easy to break down console sales from this generation of gaming.

Ah, the classic days of gaming... cartridge-based masterpieces such as "Pitfall!," "Super Mario Bros." and "Street Fighter II" graced our television sets for hours upon hours, providing gamers with an experience we still look back at today.

Then came the CD revolution. It actually started with PCs and made its way into gaming consoles. Early incarnations, such as SegaCD, the 3DO and TurboCD were big flops before Sony shot optical media gaming into the stratosphere with the original PlayStation.

So what happened to cartridges? They are still used in the Nintendo DS, but what about home consoles? The last major cartridge-based player was the Nintendo 64, and we haven't seen another of its kind since.

It's no trade secret the reasons why optical media took over. Just walk into your local store and check out how cheap a pack of recordable CDs or DVDs are. On the other hand, cartridges are more expensive combinations of plastic, circuits and chips. Plus, they couldn't hold nearly as much data as optical media can.

But does that mean cartridges are nearing extinction after the DS? While right now it looks that way, I wouldn't count them out yet.

Here's why: Remember just a minute ago I talked about how much more expensive they are as opposed to CDs or DVDs? Well that might not be the case forever. Just look at how far solid-state computer media has come in just a few years, and also look at how much cheaper it's become. For example, I recently purchased a 2-gig SD card for my Wii for less than $20. That same card would have cost me upwards of $100 just a couple years ago. And that card holds roughly half of what a recordable DVD holds.

The same goes for solid-state hard drives. While they're still pretty costly, their price has gone down. And the capacity of these dwarfs even what the Blu-Ray media of the PS3 has. So what's not to say that someday video games will come on something such as SD cards, Flash cards or solid-state drives that are interchangeable on a console, just like cartridges were used?

Plus, cartridges and solid-state media offer something optical media doesn't - memory expansion. Remember the Super FX chip, the coprocessor that powered "Star Fox" on the Super NES? That game wouldn't have been possible without incorporating that chiponto the cartridge's circuitboard. You'd have to take your current-gen console apart (probably voiding its warranty) and adding some bootleg hardware to do the same thing. I think there was some type of memory expansion for the N64, but I haven't seen anything like that since.

So what do you think? Can cartridge-based consoles make a triumphant return, or are they just a relic cherished by us gamers of the 80s and 90s? With the advances in and decreasing cost of solid-state media, I think someday some retro gamer might just give it a try.