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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.")
(*#&$#(*&#!
I knew I should have gotten the PS2 instead.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
OK, at first glance of the list of incompatible games, the only one that even strikes me as worth playing is Sonic 2, and that's just a minor glitch (copy/move all your other game files to the 1019 and you'll have no problem, especially if you have an Animal Crossing game going). Darkened Skye was just plain terrible (played it on PC for about five minutes before realizing it was a thinly-veiled advertisement for Skittles candy, I kid you not), and I'll spare my criticism of the MK&A game simply because it's been done to death.
It looks to me that Nintendo did something very very smart when they initially set up the design of the memory card system, ie allowing it to be any arbitrary size (as opposed to the old PS1 cards which were 15 blocks, take it or leave it), and these are just poorly-coded games (SA2 included, though it pains me to admit). It's not that big of a deal in the long run, but of note if you happen to have the games mentioned.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
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.
I've not worked on GameCube, but all the console manufacturers have huge checklists covering memory card use, naming conventions, screen use, demo lengths and all kinds of miscellaneous details. All games must meet these requirements before they are approved for publishing. It sounds like Nintendo hadn't specified an upper limit or that capacity could increase in the future, and definitely weren't checking titles for behavior with larger capacity memory cards.
Console hardware is generally predictable, so what works today will work tomorrow. If this large memory card was part of Nintendo's road plan from the beginning, it should have been clearly documented and tested from day 1, even if the consumer hardware is not yet available. If the documentation states that the largest capacity was memory card 251 and developers work to those specs, then this is more Nintendo's fault. If the only limit on larger capacity cards was cost, then Nintendo should be stating the maximum capacity handled by the hardware and testing to that limit instead.
An ATI video card and a PPC processer is considered proprietary? If anything Sony's setup is more proprietary then the GC.
By the way, why would Nintendo need to quit makine consoles and concentrate on the portable market when they already dominate it.
You must be thinking of the Playstation 2, which is widely considered the hardest console to code for since the Sega Saturn. Indeed, one of the things developers like about the Gamecube is that it's relatively easy to code for (thanks in large part to its PowerPC processor). Also, I have my doubts that Nintendo will give any of the ground it has unless they become massively unprofitable. And since Nintendo's had only one unprofitable quarter in over 20 years, that could be quite a while.
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Where on earth did you see a PS1 that only had one memory card slot? Every model of the Playstation, from the SCPH-1000 (original model with AV connectors on the back) to the PSOne, has had two memory card slots. There's one above each controller port.
Now, there are certain games that insist on the card being in slot 1, but that's a coding issue not a hardware issue.
59 blocks should be enough for everyone!
Why not fork?
I honestly do not know anyone that owns a gamecube. Most people I know have PS2 systems or nothing at all.
And therefore, we can extrapolate that Nintendo has not sold a single game cube! Or that any units they have sold are merely "statistical noise".
Seriously, who cares that you and your buds don't have a GC? I know lots of people, myself included. It hasn't sold as well as PS2, but it has some great exclusive titles. IMO GC and Xbox are both MUCH better systems, games-wise. Without the PS1 (and arrangements to get FFs and GTAs first) the PS2 would be in the obscurity it deserves.
Why would Nintendo introduce a new memory card this late in the game?
I dunno, I thought it was kind of odd how low capacity their initial offering was. They may have been trying to game the system a bit, which is kind of irritating.
This is Nintendo's fault. They should have tested this new card with a number of games, old and new BEFORE they released it to the marketplace. Nintendo should be working on either a workaround to trick games into seeing a smaller card or a full solution that allows it to be seamless to all games.
Frankly, no it isn't, just like Y2K wasn't the fault of the holy roman empire or whoever set up the calender. Assuming they published a spec, Nintendo isn't obliged to complexify w/ special case issues and add expense to what is probably a pretty straightforward memory device just because a few game writers have a lack of foresight.
You can always still use the old smaller card in the other slot.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
This is Nintendo's fault. They should have tested this new card with a number of games, old and new BEFORE they released it to the marketplace. Nintendo should be working on either a workaround to trick games into seeing a smaller card or a full solution that allows it to be seamless to all games.
Come on, LOOK at the list! It's not like those games are primary candidates for testing new hardware. I mean, if they were to test it with every game on the system they'd have a few hundreds to go through. Very likely they simply took their own games or maybe the top sellers on the system (probably 90% their own games...) and tested the cards against them, who can blame them for forgetting a few mediocre-to-extremely-bad third-party games that were ported from other systems, anyway?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
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.