Ps2 Memory Cards: Great Deal or Great Ripoff?

[Trogdor20x36]

Hmm.. if you take a freshly formatted Ps2 memory card, you will realize that this so-called 8mb memory card only has 7998KB, and not the 8192KB of space you paid for! HA! Oh yeah, and the price is way too freaking high... but I've been cheated out of a valuable save game! Possibly..

[Kazuya]

Hmmm...isn't the price for a PS2 memory card the same as a PS2 controller?

[Roux!]

I though PS2 Memcards were supposed to be PSOne compatible!! No game recognizes it unless you load a previously saved (copied) file from it... What a hoax!!

[Cyberxion]

No, it's not a hoax. It's a case of misunderstanding on your part.
At no time did Sony market the PS2 memory card as being compatible with PSOne saves in any other capacity then the one already stated. In fact, Sony made it perfectly clear at the PS2's launch that the mem cards for the PS2 weren't compatible with the PSOne, so anyone caught unawares simply wasn't paying attention.
You are able to archive PSOne saves to the PS2 card, then put them back on a PSOne mem card whenever you decide to use them, and that's it.

[Xaenn]

I've always thought memory cards were a total rip off. They cost a ton and then hold about 5 save games. Oh well.

You never get what they say though. My 40 gig hard drive is like 38.9 or so....oh well.

[Roux!]

Originally posted by Cyberxion
No, it's not a hoax. It's a case of misunderstanding on your part.
At no time did Sony market the PS2 memory card as being compatible with PSOne saves in any other capacity then the one already stated. In fact, Sony made it perfectly clear at the PS2's launch that the mem cards for the PS2 weren't compatible with the PSOne, so anyone caught unawares simply wasn't paying attention.
You are able to archive PSOne saves to the PS2 card, then put them back on a PSOne mem card whenever you decide to use them, and that's it.

Of course... What bugs me is I'll have to buy PSOne memcards in order to use PSOne games on a PS2...? It loads PSOne files perfectly fine from a PS2 memcard in-game, yet cannot write to said memcard UNLESS the file is already there (overwrite)... Some issue with the memcard format, the game not finding free "memory blocks", most likely, yet it still bugs me...

/me goes buy a $1.99 PSOne memcard...

[Cyberxion]

Um...I have close to thirty game saves on my PS2 memory card man. And that's with almost 2Mb of space left for even more. At 30 bucks, memory cards can seem a bit expensive, but they aren't the rip off some people think they are. Of course, it would be better if companies would go Microsofts route and put an HD into thier systems, but not all gaming companies have endless pockets like Microsoft, and so cannot entertain the notion of the extra expense an HD would bring....

[J]

Yes, buying several thousands of HDD can increase the cost of a console... but I sense that some sort of mass storage device will be a requirement in future consoles... and that the console as we know it will tun into a multiuse media center... *shudders*

Call me crazy, but sometimes I miss the battery-save function... until the battery died. My old Zelda save games... neh, Memory Cards are our friends, especially for RPG's.

[Xaenn]

Well personally I don't have a PS2, so I can only think of my PSX memory card and N64. On PSX, I remember Dark Stone...an ok game, really just a bad excuse for diablo II, however, it takes like 8 blocks, and I believe the card holds 15? That's pretty sad. And N64, Super Mario Kart, you can save ghosts...that sounds ok. Then when you want to do it, it takes about 121 pages, and I think the max is 124. hmm, a whole card to save one ghost?

[Roux!]

Originally posted by xaenn
I've always thought memory cards were a total rip off. They cost a ton and then hold about 5 save games. Oh well.

You never get what they say though. My 40 gig hard drive is like 38.9 or so....oh well.

I remember I bought a double-pack for like... thirty-something...?
Don't quite remember, but they were only a BIT more expensive than a single pack... Official SONY memcards, of course... And they weren't on special sale, or something...

[Cyberxion]

Originally posted by Ru
Of course... What bugs me is I'll have to buy PSOne memcards in order to use PSOne games on a PS2...? It loads PSOne files perfectly fine from a PS2 memcard in-game, yet cannot write to said memcard UNLESS the file is already there (overwrite)... Some issue with the game not finding free "memory blocks", most likely, yet it still bugs me...

/me goes buy a $1.99 PSOne memcard...

Well my friend, I've never been able to load a PSOne save off a PS2 mem card while playing on the PS2, nor have I been able to save a PSOne game to it, wether or not there was a save file on the PS2 card for the game to overwrite to. What game allowed you to do this? I'd like to research it further and see if this is indeed a possibility.

At any rate, it's not as if PSOne memory cards are expensive, as you so wonderfully illustrated at the end of your post. You can find a three-pack of PSOne cards at most game stores for around ten bucks, at most.

[Roux!]

Originally posted by xaenn
Well personally I don't have a PS2, so I can only think of my PSX memory card and N64. On PSX, I remember Dark Stone...an ok game, really just a bad excuse for diablo II, however, it takes like 8 blocks, and I believe the card holds 15? That's pretty sad. And N64, Super Mario Kart, you can save ghosts...that sounds ok. Then when you want to do it, it takes about 121 pages, and I think the max is 124. hmm, a whole card to save one ghost?

123 pages...

N64 controller packs were just a hoax, and that's it... They redefine the meaning of the word "evil"!!

I think they cost as much as a game cart, right...?

[Cyberxion]

Originally posted by Galcian
Call me crazy, but sometimes I miss the battery-save function... until the battery died. My old Zelda save games... neh, Memory Cards are our friends, especially for RPG's.

Indeed. And I do believe that memory cards were always intended to be a cost saving device as well as being a necessity back in the day, as battery saves jacked up the price of carts, and at the time the idea of including an HD with a system wasn't even being considered. I guess for the cart-based N64, it was a way to keep cart prices down a bit, and for the CD based systems such as the Saturn and PSX, they were simply a necessity. Now that Microsoft has raised the stakes and included an HD in it's system, it's obvious that future systems will be forced to follow suit, but everything having been released before that can be excused for using the mem-card format for storing saves.

[Roux!]

Originally posted by Cyberxion
Well my friend, I've never been able to load a PSOne save off a PS2 mem card while playing on the PS2, nor have I been able to save a PSOne game to it, wether or not there was a save file on the PS2 card for the game to overwrite to. What game allowed you to do this? I'd like to research it further and see if this is indeed a possibility.

At any rate, it's not as if PSOne memory cards are expensive, as you so wonderfully illustrated at the end of your post. You can find a three-pack of PSOne cards at most game stores for around ten bucks, at most.

Resident Evil 2 - Dual Shock, if I remember correctly...

But this wasn't something I'd usually do for all games, as I had my separate PSOne cards as well... I was just too lazy to get up and change the card, so I just loaded a copied file from my PS2 card... I was quite surprised to see it work (I thought it would corrupt after overwriting, but it didn't...).

Anyway... Yeah, I'm just pissed at the fact that that I have to buy new cards solely for PSOne games... Not like they're expensive anymore... I'm just being a 'tard...

[Cyberxion]

Originally posted by Ru
Anyway... Yeah, I'm just pissed at the fact that that I have to buy new cards solely for PSOne games... Not like they're expensive anymore... I'm just being a 'tard...

To each thier own, my friend. I guess I'd be with ya if we were talking about having to buy a new PS2 mem card just because the game you want to play requires almost a whole card to save, but as we are talking about PSOne mem cards, which are a couple bucks a pop, I can't see it as being much of an issue.