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GameCube Coders Caught Out By Gigantic Memory Card
Thanks to GamerFeed for its news story discussing compatibility problems with some GameCube titles and the new Nintendo Memory Card 1019. The news story explains: "The [official Nintendo-produced] card has 17 times the memory capacity of the original Memory Card 59", and describes issues, some due to the card's four-digit block size, with a number of more minor third-party games, including Sonic Adventure 2 Battle ("If there are more than 999 free blocks on the Memory Card 1019, the game cannot display the amount of free blocks"), WTA Tour Tennis ("The game does not recognize the Memory Card 1019 properly, and should not be used"), and, disastrously problematic for many memory cards, Mary-Kate And Ashley: Sweet 16 ("Graphics sometimes will not display properly if a file is loaded and restarted after quitting the game.")
What I'm wondering is this: who's fault is this? Is this incompatability the fault of Nintendo or the game coders?
I don't know the mechanics of the memory card, but here we just have the same memory card, but with more memory. So I can't think that the problem arises from Nintendo's side, unless the card requires something else different because of the increased memory.
It looks like it could be the fault of the game coders. Given, they really couldn't test the 1019 card, but I would think that proper programming would have prevented the problem with Sonic Adventure 2.
On a side note, if you RTA, you'll see that, according to the article, the Mary Kate and Ashley game (as well as NHL Hitz 20-03) have compatibility issues with the 59 and 251 Memory Cards, so these are nothing new.
Good thing I won't be buying those two games when I finally get my own Gamecube. [grumble]
Considering third-party-made memorycards of that capacity have been available for quite some time now it should have been possible to catch these errors even before the official 1019 was announced. The games listed aren't exactly the best exammples of good coding, though.
Also, the claim that the MC1019 could hold hundreds of saves isn't entirely correct, either, since according to the Gamecube's manual a card cannot hold more than 127 files regardless of its size.
Besides, the Mary Kate and Ashley game's flaw isn't caused by the MC1019, the article states it happens with ALL memory cards, i.e. the game's load function is flawed.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It's about time, Nintendo. I've had my InterAct memory card for a long time now with 16x the memory of the original Nintendo card. Never had a problem with any game, and its been a godsend on saving those damn huge Madden season files.
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Someone needs to bring up the bigger issue here. Why is this MC just barely coming out now? At launch in the US there was only the MC 59. This retails for $20. A while later they released the MC 251 for $25. Now they have the MC 1019 for $30. 17 times the storage for only $10 more? Noone else sees this as problematic? The PS2 has had an official 8MB card since launch. The Xbox has had that size as well AND included a HD in the first place.
The ones who got screwed here? Nintendo's early adopters. How do they get away with this? I don't see how anyone in good conscience can defend this behavior. This isn't 1989 when they might have to invent a bigger cart just to ship a new game. The technology has clearly been available, they just chose to screw with their biggest fans knowing they would get away with it.
Well I'm sure this will get modded down fast, even though once again its only facts. At least try to dispute this before you wield those mod points.
Also a case of shoddy programming. Most gamecube games asume that you have 1 memory card, on port A. And I'm not talking about obscure, third party, bad games. I'm talking about Metroid Prime, Mario Kart, WindWaker, Mario Sunshine, the Zelda collector disc, etc. If you have more than 1 memory card, you either:
-arrange your save files to minimize the hassle of swapping cards
or
-swap cards.
Games that I know recognize more than 1 memory card (or the fact that the memory card is on the port B) are Burnout 2, Capcom vs SNK 2 and Animal Crossing (the only first party games that it does!)
While they make awesome games, Nintendo has a shoddy programmer in charge of save/load games, that hasn't considered every case.
Nintendo also plans an SD card adapter for the GC and, again, has been clear about this from the beginning. If something breaks on that one are you going to blame Nintendo again?
And considering that you are speaking out of your ass when it comes to the memory card slots for the PSone, I have to assume one thing: You have no damn clue about the topic we are discussing. Return to lurking under your bridge.
Many things affect the size of game saves on the memory card. Games aren't allowed to vary the size of their saves so they claim enough space for their worst case scenario. Beyond the game's own data, the icon, optional banner and description are counted in that block total. A block is only 8KB so a game with an 8-frame animated icon and with a banner could well use 6-7 blocks just for that.
It's much worse on PS2 where the (admittedly usually very cool looking) 3D models take anything from 50KB to 150KB each. Since a game can have 3 models (display, copy and delete) that could be almost half a megabyte just for icons!
Graham