Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

GameCube Coders Caught Out By Gigantic Memory Card

Posted by simoniker on from the whoops-apocalypse dept.

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.")

4 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Here's a question by RyoShin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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]

  2. Bad coder, no cookie! by KDR_11k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Not exactly on topic but... by Zangief · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.