• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Do you miss memory cards?

Miss memory cards?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 16.4%

  • Nope

    Votes: 189 83.6%
  • Total voters
    226
West Texas CEO

West Texas CEO

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
It's one of the things I love, love, love about the older generations. When I go to my buddy's house for a bout of retro gaming (even to this day), all I need to bring with me is my memory card and the game. I don't need to lug my PS2 with me, considering he also has a PS2. Unlike USB, SSD, or external HDD, it isn't linked to an account... The memory card IS the account.

Nowadays, when I go to a friend's house with a modern system, I either have to bring my entire console with me or I have to go through a big process of manually copying over my save data to USB/external HDD, logging into my account on their system, copying the files back over to the system, and then when I leave, having to copy the files back over to the USB/external HDD and deleting my account and associated information off of their system.

9w6wh5oaqtu51.png


What are your feeling on mem cards and what were your fond memories (no pun intended) from back in the day?
Ever mistakenly erase a file?

ny86n3dr-garfield-argh.gif
 
cireza

cireza

Member
No. They were already a step backwards compared to being able to save in the cartridge. An annoyance that came to be because of the disc format. You never had issues with saving on cartridges. With cd consoles, you either did not have room to save, or the memory would get wiped, or the memory card was full and you had to have like 4 of them around etc... and you had to pay for them.

I can't find a single positive about them.
 
Last edited:
West Texas CEO

West Texas CEO

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
cireza said:
No. They were already a step backwards compared to being able to save in the cartridge. An annoyance that came to be because of the disc format. You never had issues with saving on cartridges. With cd consoles, you either did not have room to save, or the memory would get wiped, or the memory card was full and you had to have like 4 of them around etc...
Click to expand...
The Saturn was a CD-based system with internal saves. Myth debunked.
 
cireza

cireza

Member
West Texas CEO said:
The Saturn was a CD-based system with internal saves. Myth debunked.
Click to expand...
This is precisely what I am talking about with the memory getting wiped. How many times did I lose end game saves of Shining Force III ?

The SEGA CD also has internal saves but it doesn't seem to be prone to data getting wiped like on Saturn. The internal memory is tiny in both cases.
 
Last edited:
Laptop1991

Laptop1991

Member
I selected yes because i still use usb and external hdd's all the time and i've just bought a new phone and i had to have an SD Card slot for storage and all the expensive new ones don't have them, so even though i never used any for consoles i still like the choice and adaptability of memory cards for all types of devices, not everything has to be stored on all these clouds, look at CrowdStrike.
 
SenkiDala

SenkiDala

Member
West Texas CEO said:
The Saturn was a CD-based system with internal saves. Myth debunked.
Click to expand...
He exactly said "or the memory would get wiped". CR2032 batteries don't last forever and when you need to change those, if you didn't backup the saves they are lost.

Anyway I don't miss memory cards. You have plenty of space to save on HDD/NVME and if you want portability copy your saves on a usb stick.
 
Fbh

Fbh

Gold Member
I might remember them more fondly if I didn't have one of these bootleg ones that didn't really work very well.
s-l400.jpg

But it was cheaper than an original one and had way more capacity.
 
DonkeyPunchJr

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
I hate them, such a gigantic fucking pain.

PS1 memory cards had 15 blocks total, and many games used multiple blocks (Gran Turismo needed 5). So you constantly had to move stuff around, delete anything you were done with, etc.

Then for PS2 the first-party memory cards were almost impossible to find in stock anywhere. When I got my PS2 in spring 2002 I had to get this piece of shit 3rd party memory card that had ITS OWN BOOT DISC. You literally had to boot the PS2 up with this mini disc that came with the memory card in order for it to be recognized, then swap to the game disc and launch it. What a fucking piece of garbage.


So yeah sorry I have some pretty negative feelings toward memory cards. The only one I liked was Dreamcast VMU (which also kinda sucked thanks to the short battery life)
 
AJUMP23

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
No, it was a way to charge you more money for something that use to be included on the ROM.
 
El Muerto

El Muerto

Member
Not at all. Memory cards had limited storage and were slow to save and load. Can't tell you how many times some dumbfuck erased my memory card with a gameshark. So much easier and convenient having cloud sync.
 
Kataploom

Kataploom

Gold Member
Never used them, I was on N64, then PC and then NDS, right now I have a Switch, and PC has always been around me, it literally generates no nostalgia for me, but I remember using diskettes and rewritable CDs to move my Pokemon game from one house to another just to change Pokemon with friends that, as me, also played on an emulator, as a teenager, it was too bothersome to keep worrying about it
 
Bring Back Scalebound

Bring Back Scalebound

Banned
100%, but I admit that is only an aesthetic and emotional attachment thing.

I like the idea of having all my progress kept on this little physical thing that I can carry around and keep.

The way things are right now is way more practical and secure (I might be wrong), and that's how they should be.
So even though I miss memory cards, and I would love it if for whatever reason Sony decided to go back to it, I wouldn't at all fight people that would be upset or baffled by it. You would be right to.
 
R

Rival

Gold Member
I don’t miss them but I recently went through a bunch of my old gaming stuff and came across old memory cards and checked a couple things out. Seeing my old Gran Turismo 2 saves was cool.
 
ShadyAcshuns

ShadyAcshuns

Member
Hell no. Whenever I want to play a GC game on my Wii, it's a real pain searching every GC case for those memory cards is a pain in the ass.
 
Mossybrew

Mossybrew

Member
I don't think there's much nostalgia value for these things. Just an added expense and hassle. I liked the little stickers that would come with PSM you could put on them, that's about the only positive thing I could think of.
 
Shake Your Rump

Shake Your Rump

Gold Member
West Texas CEO said:
Nowadays, when I go to a friend's house with a modern system, I either have to bring my entire console with me or I have to go through a big process of manually copying over my save data to USB/external HDD, logging into my account on their system, copying the files back over to the system, and then when I leave, having to copy the files back over to the USB/external HDD and deleting my account and associated information off of their system.
Click to expand...
Please elaborate what games you are playing that makes you actually go through all these steps.
 
DonkeyPunchJr

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
marquimvfs said:
I don't miss them but I do miss that the save data weren't tied to an account. If saves weren't tied that way, you could use any usb flashdrive as a memory card and easily transfer data between consoles.
Click to expand...
True. Remember DexDrive? You could back up your saves to a PC and share them over the internet.

Dexdrive.jpg



Never had one myself but I’ve downloaded many DexDrive files for use with PlayStation emulators.
 
ReyBrujo

ReyBrujo

Member
The saved game was what made my Final Fantasy VI cartridge mine because the characters, their spells and their experience was obtained by myself. Same with every cartridge game with a save state. Then they took that out of the media, in some cases because they just couldn't store it (CDs, DVDs, etc). And now the Switch can't even copy the saved games to an external card, it's tied to the console or the cloud. So whereas before my copy of Chrono Trigger was mine and selling it and buying another wouldn't be the same because the saved game would be gone, now it feels so distant, you cannot even know you can change your console without losing everything unless you pay for cloud (until they kill it).
 
L

lestar

Member
memory cards are still with us technically, current consoles already have expandable memory slots in the form of SSDs (PS5, Xbox) and SD cards (Switch). With the Switch, as it has the least internal memory (32GB), people are already experiencing the 'memory card' experience, swapping multiple SD cards.
 
I

isual

Member
I initially bought a 1tb xbox series x expansion card, but just recently bought the 2tb one: this is because I needed more space and I don't like deleting games unless I am done with it.

helps a lot, and the acknowledgement of the console to read the memory card/storage expansion is seamless.
 
Bond007

Bond007

Member
Nope.
But it was perfect at the time of my youth and its ability to travel.
However as an adult now i have zero use for that and online gaming is mainstream. There isnt as much need to bring my stuff along for anything local if i were to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
Between the Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox, which console do you think was the best?
Retro 3 4 5 6 7
304
10K
GloveSlap replied
Asus won't say if the ROG Ally's SD card reader will ever truly be fixed.
2
69
6K
Darko replied
My first 3 months with a PS5 is kinda a mixed bag...
2 3 4 5
200
16K
TropicanaTwista replied
  • Poll
Between Xbox One and Wii U, which one do you think is better?
Cringe Retro 2
95
3K
Deputy Moonman replied
Tamping.
2 3 4
161
10K
Rob_27 replied
Top Bottom