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Xbox Memory Cards - what the...?

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Last week, I purchased a memory card for the Xbox... in anticipation of going to visit my friend in Connecticut. I wanted to show him some Jade Empire and Ninja Gaiden action. So I get home, plug it into my controller... thinking it's something simple that you can just copy from the HD to the memory card through the BIOS. But, for some reason... those 2 games don't allow you to copy saves! (Fable is the only game that I tested that seems to be able to save games onto the card). So, I can't back up saves for either of these games nor transfer them (especially since I've been playing Jade for about 20 hours now). The lack of universal compatibility between games and the memory cards is really disheartening.
 
I'm surprised it took you this long to find that huge gaping flaw in Xbox's design. They have some third party products that might be able to help you out "X-Drive?" but it'll cost ya.
 
It's not a "gaping flaw." It's developer controlled. All games from Team Ninja don't allow the copying of saved games as does Steel Battalion...didn't know about Jade Empire.
 
Even if you get the games save copied you still might be screwed. Games like Burnout 3 actually need to be cracked to open game saves from other Xboxes.
 
Then it is a poorly developer controlled flaw. Backup your KOTOR saves? No fuggin chance. MS should of set some sort of controlled standard for saving files instead of giving developers hardrive freedom. I ran into some poor sap at Gamecrazy who had saved games and MP3's out the ass on his broken Xbox and was askin me how to save them to his new Xbox. I just smiled and said "a miracle".
 
Yes, Ninja Gaiden does not allow memory card saves or swaps... so it is not a problem with your X-Box... it is right in the manual, I was pissed too... I wanted to show a relative my Ninja Gaiden level progress... BASTARDS...
 
This is why the removable HD is such a cool idea for XBox 360! It's like taking your entire XBox identity with you in a small form factor.

Right now, all I use the XBox memory card is for taking my XBox Live account with me to my friend's place.
 
Shogmaster said:
This is why the removable HD is such a cool idea for XBox 360! It's like taking your entire XBox identity with you in a small form factor.

Right now, all I use the XBox memory card is for taking my XBox Live account with me to my friend's place.

Now that you mention it like that, a removable HD sounds like a good idea.
 
That is one fecking bizarre feature that I will never understand. If there is a developer out there with a good reasoning for this I will hear him gladly. There is a solution though, you can mod the console and swap/backup saves pretty easily. I believe there's even a way to soft-mod it with a memory card.
 
Shogmaster said:
This is why the removable HD is such a cool idea for XBox 360! It's like taking your entire XBox identity with you in a small form factor.

Right now, all I use the XBox memory card is for taking my XBox Live account with me to my friend's place.

You know what else is a good idea? Some kind of small, inexpensive storage device that lets you, I don't know, move your saves around.
 
Funky Papa said:
That is one fecking bizarre feature that I will never understand. If there is a developer out there with a good reasoning for this I will hear him gladly.

In Steel Battalion, your character has one life. You can put a hundred hours into him, and if your mech takes critical damage, you must lift the cover off the big red eject button and frantically slam it. If you do not eject, your character will die permanently and you need to make a new character. If you could back this guy up on a memory card, it'd detract from the experience, definitely.
 
I'm not sure why Jade Empire or other games don't allow you to copy saves, but for Ninja Gaiden, they set it up with some super-dee-duper secret encryption so that people couldn't copy their saves or transfer them to other people because they had some big worldwide Ninja Gaiden tournament going on during the first year of its release.
 
This isn't limited to the Xbox. There are PS2 and Gamecube games that are also "locked" to a memory card (also PSO on DC). Also, KOTOR saves were huge, Jade Empire might be the same way. There simply may not be enough space on a memory card to hold a JE save. I saved a lot in KOTOR (over 100 saves) as I am wont to do with Western-style RPGs to try out different conversation branches, etc. I was shocked to go into the dashboard later and see that "50,000+ blocks free" had dropped down to about "23,000 blocks free" :lol. I dunno why KOTOR saves were so big (easy answer is laziness on Bioware's part).
 
I can get the Steel Battalion and Jade Empire examples and I have no problem with them, the ones that irk me are Ninja Gaiden, Bournout 3 and the likes. It is not like you can save the online component in a separate non movable or invisible file...

I guess it's the price to pay since almost nobody uses memory cards because of the HDD, developers are just not willing to sacrifice resources in such a niche feature. Then again, I don't think this takes so much time to code.
 
the year 20XX said:
You know what else is a good idea? Some kind of small, inexpensive storage device that lets you, I don't know, move your saves around.

Obviously some devs have problems with doing that with memory cards. I remember some DC games like that too. Apprently they don't want us to trade completed saves with others.

With something like the X360 removable HD, you can't at least take your damn saves with you without taking your XBox 360 with you to your friend's house who also has a X360, even for those games devs deem too cool for you to pass saves around.
 
3rdman said:
It's not a "gaping flaw." It's developer controlled. All games from Team Ninja don't allow the copying of saved games as does Steel Battalion...didn't know about Jade Empire.


it's not a bug, it's a feature!!!!!!11
 
I was given a memory card when I got my xbox at launch. I plugged it in but I have never used it - not even once. Same with the DVD remote - I already have a (better) DVD player connected to the same TV.

It was horrible to get those two things because the person who gave them to me meant well and it was really sweet of them, but I knew I would never use them. What a waste of money :(

I also have three controllers - one of which has never been used :^/
 
byproduct said:
I was given a memory card when I got my xbox at launch. I plugged it in but I have never used it - not even once. Same with the DVD remote - I already have a (better) DVD player connected to the same TV.

It was horrible to get those two things because the person who gave them to me meant well and it was really sweet of them, but I knew I would never use them. What a waste of money :(

I also have three controllers - one of which has never been used :^/

I'll take them off your hands, buddy. ;)
 
PC Gaijin said:
This isn't limited to the Xbox. There are PS2 and Gamecube games that are also "locked" to a memory card (also PSO on DC).

Yeah, but at least then it's already on a memory card that you can take to other PS2s.
 
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