I Don't Miss Memory Cards

[Gotakibono]

Here's a video I made discussing memory cards and how delighted I am that they are a thing of the past. I do miss the awesome animated save icons, though - they were cool.

 

 

[Helyx]

Cries in PS Vita.

[DaivRules]

Man memory cards were SUCH a huge advancement from all our save files being locked on a cartridge with a CBOMB onboard (I hate that stupid name, it should have been called Clock Block if the topic weren't so clickbaitey) of every one of them. Taking my memory card to a friends house versus bringing my cartridges was awesome.

 

Eventually the third party cards (many of which were shitty and undependable) really made memory cards affordable and increased capacity.

 

I had a Sony branded card as my backup for my third party cards. And luckily I never had any corrupted saves.

 

 

[SnowxSakura]

They were still way better than the volatile battery backup for saves like the sega saturn and turbografx has

[AyeOfReach]

I still have 4 of them since ps2 days n they are too valuable to me cause all my work is saved on em.

 

Nowadays I just care about trophies synced to psn, most saves don't matter anymore.

[TheArcadeKid]

Great video. I didn't actually have much of an issue with memory cards myself. The vast majority of my games were always under 500kb, and I don't remember ever having to manage space. I only ever had a corrupted file once - Spider-Man, I think - which I couldn't actually overwrite or delete. Got around that by using a second memory card.

 

Honestly, the biggest issue with memory cards for me was getting borderline OCD about what was on there. For some reason, I ended up with five separate memory cards, and I had this system in my head of what kind of save data each one should have.

 

What can I say? I was a weird kid.

[Dr_Mayus]

I rented Parasite Eve with a buddy and his card didnt work. We had to leave the playstation on all weekend to not lose our save

[DizzyDavidson]

Ah yeah memory cards. I didn’t have a PS1 or PS2 memory card in the early days. My first memory card was a third party PS2 card that you had to use a disc with when you started the system. I still have a brand PS2 and GameCube memory card. I just discovered recently that my NGC card corrupted so all my saves are gone. I hope my PS2 card still works. I only use it when I actually play on PS2 (rarely but happens). My saves are backed up on PS3, otherwise I would need like 5 cards just to store all my saves.

[AihaLoveleaf]

Memory Cards were pretty cool at the time. Knowing my save files were permanent was comforting, as even as early as the late 90s I already had some cartridge saves starting to fail on me. Only thing that sucked was the general lack of storage on the things. I did eventually solve that by buying cards with higher capacity levels, but some good save files had to be deleted such as my 100% save files on Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 for the GameCube that no longer exist. I do like the idea of PS Plus cloud saves now because I could technically 100% both games again (and I definitely will) and still have those save files in existence for as long as my own hardware or Sony's cloud services remain solvent. 

[Edunstar84]

That feeling you get when you had to decide which save file you were going to delete to make room for new games....it was awful. In other news, I love Irish accents!

[Gotakibono]

59 minutes ago, Helyx said:

Cries in PS Vita.

 

I finally bought a Vita last week! I know, a little late to the party, but it only dawned on me when I started downloading games that I don't have a 500GB hard drive to work with - might take a little bit of readjusting.

 

51 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

Man memory cards were SUCH a huge advancement from all our save files being locked on a cartridge with a CBOMB onboard (I hate that stupid name, it should have been called Clock Block if the topic weren't so clickbaitey) of every one of them. Taking my memory card to a friends house versus bringing my cartridges was awesome.

 

Eventually the third party cards (many of which were shitty and undependable) really made memory cards affordable and increased capacity.

 

I had a Sony branded card as my backup for my third party cards. And luckily I never had any corrupted saves.

 

 

 

You're lucky, the few people I knew that had third-party cards always complained about them corrupting all their saves. I never managed to get one, but I would've taken the risk just to have a larger storage capacity so I didn't have to delete save files every time I played something new.

 

50 minutes ago, SnowxSakura said:

They were still way better than the volatile battery backup for saves like the sega saturn and turbografx has

 

Haha! You're absolutely right with that, Snow.

 

44 minutes ago, AyeOfReach said:

I still have 4 of them since ps2 days n they are too valuable to me cause all my work is saved on em.

 

Nowadays I just care about trophies synced to psn, most saves don't matter anymore.

 

THat's a good point, syncing trophies to the PSN is sort of the most important thing for me as well considering cloud storage is a thing.

 

41 minutes ago, TheArcadeKid said:

Great video. I didn't actually have much of an issue with memory cards myself. The vast majority of my games were always under 500kb, and I don't remember ever having to manage space. I only ever had a corrupted file once - Spider-Man, I think - which I couldn't actually overwrite or delete. Got around that by using a second memory card.

 

Honestly, the biggest issue with memory cards for me was getting borderline OCD about what was on there. For some reason, I ended up with five separate memory cards, and I had this system in my head of what kind of save data each one should have.

 

What can I say? I was a weird kid.

 

Hahaha! I was a tad odd about my memory card as well. I flat out refused to delete some save files because I always wanted my favourite games to be on the card; the longer the generation went on the harder it became to keep my arbitrary 'Top 10 PS2 games' on the card.

 

31 minutes ago, Dr_Mayus said:

I rented Parasite Eve with a buddy and his card didnt work. We had to leave the playstation on all weekend to not lose our save

 

Parasite Eve is such a great game, so it was worth the pricer electricity bill.

 

4 minutes ago, DizzyDavidson said:

Ah yeah memory cards. I didn’t have a PS1 or PS2 memory card in the early days. My first memory card was a third party PS2 card that you had to use a disc with when you started the system. I still have a brand PS2 and GameCube memory card. I just discovered recently that my NGC card corrupted so all my saves are gone. I hope my PS2 card still works. I only use it when I actually play on PS2 (rarely but happens). My saves are backed up on PS3, otherwise I would need like 5 cards just to store all my saves.

 

Let me know if your PS2 saves are okay - as much as I ranted about memory cards in the video I would still feel a bit sad if I lost all the files that are on it. 

[Shinoda_2qx]

I still have all my memory cards - just the one from ps1 and about 8 from ps2. Most of them are full with various save files from Champ Manager 06 and 07 ? and one that has my Tiger Woods 05 save file on. TW05 basically started my trophy obsession before trophies were even a thing, trying to fill the trophy room on that was awesome, many happy memories from those cards. 

[Helyx]

40 minutes ago, DizzyDavidson said:

My first memory card was a third party PS2 card that you had to use a disc with when you started the system.

 

Sounds like GameShark.

[LastMinuteSavior]

I'm not nostalgic about any of the old consoles, but it is interesting to remember how game developers always had to work around the technical limitations of each generation of hardware. 

 

Entertaining video. Subscribed.

 

Off topic: I have the same hair/beard confinement style combo ?

 

[BOOTP]

For most football manager games, I recall a PlayStation 128 kilobytes memory card (i.e. 15 slots) gave ONE save file and that was it.

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

I remember when the 7th gen came around, I initially didn't like the idea of saves being on the hard drive, and missed memory cards. I never liked saves being tied to a console or cartridge, I liked having the reassurance that if my console or cart dies, my save is not lost with it, and with many memory card saves, you could thankfully copy your most valuable saves to another memory card to back them up most of the time. I quickly got over it though, once I realised how easy it was to back up my saves onto USB sticks (well, the ones that weren't copy protected anyway, but thankfully the PS Plus and Xbox Gold cloud mostly solved that eventually).

 

I think the thing I miss about memory cards the most are the animated icons, as you said. I definitely don't miss having to constantly delete saves to make space for new games. I remember some games on the PS1 literally needing the entire memory card to make a save.

 

Heck, I still use memory cards actually, I still play Gamecube games on my Wii, and PS2 games on my PS2. Not as often any more, but I still have small backlogs for those consoles. Most of my memory cards are still perfectly fine, 20+ years later. Had a few third party PS2 ones fail on me, but all my third party Gamecube memcards are still kicking.

 

The expanded storage bays on the PS5 and Series X remind me far too much of memory cards (even though I know they're not), and I've been kind of adverse to the idea of their existence ever since they were announced. Especially with how expensive they are, really wish it was possible to install PS5/XSX games onto a standard HDD, even if they do load slower as a result.

[Darling Baphomet]

8 minutes ago, SuperSmexy500 said:

The expanded storage bays on the PS5 and Series X remind me far too much of memory cards (even though I know they're not), and I've been kind of adverse to the idea of their existence ever since they were announced. Especially with how expensive they are, really wish it was possible to install PS5/XSX games onto a standard HDD, even if they do load slower as a result.

 

That would defeat the point of having an SSD, since game developers would have to program for having an HDD. Like stuff like the new Ratchet & Clank that make use of almost instant loading using the SSD would be unplayable. I guess third party games which would already be made for HDDs would probably work, though.

[Raidou Kuzunoha XIV]

34 minutes ago, Darling Baphomet said:

 

That would defeat the point of having an SSD, since game developers would have to program for having an HDD. Like stuff like the new Ratchet & Clank that make use of almost instant loading using the SSD would be unplayable. I guess third party games which would already be made for HDDs would probably work, though.

 

I know, I just kinda wish consoles hadn't switched to SSDs, even though it was an inevitably at some point, they're still  too costly for how much you get in my eyes. With game installs often being 70-100+ GB nowadays, a 750GB SSD or whatever for £300ish is kinda insane for how little you can actually fit on there. I'm sure the prices will start to decline eventually, but probably not significantly during this generation at least

[jgm4789]

I remember launch copies of animal crossing on gamecube shipped with a memory card. But the catch was that the games save filesize was so big you need most of the space just for that game(and the rest will graduallyfill up later as you play the game and your town gets bigger). Memory cards were even more annoying on n64 because half the games required one to save while others had battery backup(first party nintendo and rareware games usually had the battery backup but they were at the top of the n64 developer totem pole so of course they got special treatment)

[Jeanolt]

i agree 100%. I remember playing the beginning of Resident Evil 4 SO MANY TIMES because i didnt have a memory card. It was a fun month anyway.

[DizzyDavidson]

4 hours ago, Gotakibono said:

Let me know if your PS2 saves are okay - as much as I ranted about memory cards in the video I would still feel a bit sad if I lost all the files that are on it. 

 

I just checked after coming home from work, the memory card works and whatever is on it loads fine. I assume the rest of the saves I store on the PS3 is good too.

 

4 hours ago, Helyx said:

 

Sounds like GameShark.

 

That could very well be. Never used it as a gameshark tho, just as a memory card. It was 20 years ago, I was dumb... I'm still dumb.  

[ChiefMichigan]

The GameCube was the first piece of video game hardware my family owned. Our cousin and grandparents also had GameCubes and PS2s. So I'm quite familiar with memory cards. They sucked ass. What was more painful is when they bought old PS1 games to play on the PS2, but didn't get PS1 memory cards.

 

I got a Vita in 2021, and the memory card situation there is so bad. I'm not a jailbreaker, so I'm not going to try to use microSDs on the Vita.

 

Don't get me wrong, batteries inside game cartridges/cards have negatives to them as well. They can die or malfunction. But so can memory cards, and memory cards can get corrupted.

 

Here's my preference order for save files/updates/other data

1. Hard drive

2. Built-in the game cartridge/card

3. Non-proprietary SD and microSD (So like how things are on Wii, Switch, etc.)

4. Hardware specific memory cards (PS1, GameCube, PS2, Vita, etc.)

 

[RadiantFlamberge]

On 4/30/2021 at 2:19 PM, SnowxSakura said:

They were still way better than the volatile battery backup for saves like the sega saturn and turbografx has

Right. If the battery dies, your saves get wiped. Not fun. I like how the current systems save to the HDD.

 

Should hell freeze over and Sony decides to make a PSP 3/Vita 2, hopefully they'll not use proprietary overpriced memory cards again. Nintendo has the right idea. Use mSDXC cards and sell more games. When your customer fills up that first card, they will be more quick to get another one and come back to you to start shopping again. A 64 GB Vita memory card is around $180 (IINM it was $100 originally)... and you're not going to pay even a half of that for a 256 GB mSDXC.

[Spacebeak]

I miss ps2 memory icons ? 

[SnowxSakura]

12 hours ago, RadiantFlamberge said:

Right. If the battery dies, your saves get wiped. Not fun. I like how the current systems save to the HDD.

 

Should hell freeze over and Sony decides to make a PSP 3/Vita 2, hopefully they'll not use proprietary overpriced memory cards again. Nintendo has the right idea. Use mSDXC cards and sell more games. When your customer fills up that first card, they will be more quick to get another one and come back to you to start shopping again. A 64 GB Vita memory card is around $180 (IINM it was $100 originally)... and you're not going to pay even a half of that for a 256 GB mSDXC.

The PC Engine Duo is even worse, it uses a capacitor to hold your saves, if the system is unplugged for too long, the cap will drain and your saves will poof