ps1 memory cards

[ambriglia]

i will be buying an original ps1 soon, and i need to buy some ps1 memory cards. i looked on ebay for the genuine sony ps1 cards, and they are rediculously overpriced. does anyone know if the third-party memory cards work fine, or any other feasible solutions? i've had issues with them in the past, but that was probably close to 10 years ago...

[betamax001]

Instead of eBay I would try Amazon.com. Used Sony brands are usually like 10 bucks.

[Haoie]

No matter the brand, any mem card will wear out eventually.

But yup, official types are far more reliable, especially if you like to keep your save games around for years.

[Rickstilwell1]

The one you really want to stay away from is the Mega Memory Card. it may have many many cards in one, but if you use too much of it, it will corrupt and be rendered useless.

The two in one cards aren't too bad though.

My solution is to keep just a couple Sony brand ones and transport the saves to the newer Sony systems as I fill them up and complete games.

[The 1 2 P]

I only have third party PS1 memory cards(Interact and Mad Cats) and I have never had any problems with them. They are now 10+ years old and still work fine.

[bartre]

yeah, i've never had any problems with the off brands.
but then again, i've never messed around with those 2,3,4 in one cards, just the standard sizes.
and really? $10 for a ps1 card? the shop near me sells official ones for like $3...

[bacteria]

I think I have a few spare PS1 memory cards if you need any; couple of pounds each plus postage if you're interested, PM me!

[MASTERWEEDO]

I have one that is a 72 In 1 Memory Card, and last time I tried it, it worked just fine. It just becomes a pain in the ass to remember which page your files are on.

[duffmanth]

I would stick with genuine Sony memory cards if you can? We had so many problems with after market memory cards at the game store I use to work at, we stop selling them altogether.

[wyethin]

It may or may not be blasphemy to suggest, but one of the perks of the PS3 is the ability to save PS1 memory data to the hard drive. They're not cheap obviously, especially if bought only for the purpose, but certainly easier to come by than the alternative.

[duffmanth]

The one you really want to stay away from is the Mega Memory Card. it may have many many cards in one, but if you use too much of it, it will corrupt and be rendered useless.

The two in one cards aren't too bad though.

My solution is to keep just a couple Sony brand ones and transport the saves to the newer Sony systems as I fill them up and complete games.

That's pretty much what I've been doing.

[Zing]

Wow. I decided to check out Amazon to see what the market is on these PlayStation memory cards. It's clear from the descriptions that almost all of them are fakes/bootlegs. I would never buy any of them without getting a photo of the actual item first.

This is what makes Ebay superior.

[MarioMania]

Does this look Legit?? it's clear blue

http://cgi.ebay.com/Playstation-PS1-1MB-Memory-Card-Sony-PS-PS2-System-/300362085645?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Video_Games_Accessories&hash=item45eef9b50d

[Vectorman0]

Does this look Legit?? it's clear blue

http://cgi.ebay.com/Playstation-PS1-1MB-Memory-Card-Sony-PS-PS2-System-/300362085645?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Video_Games_Accessories&hash=item45eef9b50d

The auction states that it is third party.

[MarioMania]

# Good quality third party product.

I missed that part..

[Zing]

Does this look Legit?? it's clear blue

http://cgi.ebay.com/Playstation-PS1-1MB-Memory-Card-Sony-PS-PS2-System-/300362085645?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Video_Games_Accessories&hash=item45eef9b50d

That one is deliberately misleading with the stock photo showing the backside of the card, instead of the front where people could instantly tell it wasn't a Sony brand.

[Spartacus]

As someone who has collected official and 3rd party PlayStation memory cards for a hobby, I know a photo showing the back of a PlayStation memory card is far more informative than a picture of the front.
Take these two cards, for example.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/425/frontuc.th.jpg (http://img808.imageshack.us/i/frontuc.jpg/)

Viewed from the front, the average person might assume both to be official Sony memory cards. The cases, front and back, are almost identical down to the smallest detail. But when viewed from the back, it’s easy to see that the real Sony memory card on the left has a chip on the memory card. The fake memory card on the right has round black blobs that substitute for chips.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/408/backrq.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/backrq.jpg/)

Official Sony memory cards never substituted chips with blobs, but some official Sony memory cards, mostly the original grays, have two chips inside. Some 3rd party memory cards will have a chip and a blob, but practically every fake or 3rd party PlayStation memory card has a black blob somewhere on the card. The only exceptions being Nyko PlayStation cards and most of the multiple MB memory cards.

Even when in the original packaging, the unsuspecting might think they are purchasing an official Sony PlayStation memory card, when in fact, they aren’t. These two look pretty official at first glance, but notice the one on the right has Psone on the memory card. Official Sony PlayStation memory cards never have Psone on the card.

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/2565/packagei.th.jpg (http://img641.imageshack.us/i/packagei.jpg/)

Collecting PlayStation memory cards has become quite an enjoyable hobby of mine. The diversity of the plain jane 3rd party memory cards is tremendous and there’s just all kinds of licensed collectable memory cards. It might surprise some to learn that the far more interesting cards are generally found in Europe and not Japan.

[Tokimemofan]

As someone who has collected official and 3rd party PlayStation memory cards for a hobby, I know a photo showing the back of a PlayStation memory card is far more informative than a picture of the front.
Take these two cards, for example.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/425/frontuc.th.jpg (http://img808.imageshack.us/i/frontuc.jpg/)

Viewed from the front, the average person might assume both to be official Sony memory cards. The cases, front and back, are almost identical down to the smallest detail. But when viewed from the back, it’s easy to see that the real Sony memory card on the left has a chip on the memory card. The fake memory card on the right has round black blobs that substitute for chips.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/408/backrq.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/backrq.jpg/)

Official Sony memory cards never substituted chips with blobs, but some official Sony memory cards, mostly the original grays, have two chips inside. Some 3rd party memory cards will have a chip and a blob, but practically every fake or 3rd party PlayStation memory card has a black blob somewhere on the card. The only exceptions being Nyko PlayStation cards and most of the multiple MB memory cards.

Even when in the original packaging, the unsuspecting might think they are purchasing an official Sony PlayStation memory card, when in fact, they aren’t. These two look pretty official at first glance, but notice the one on the right has Psone on the memory card. Official Sony PlayStation memory cards never have Psone on the card.

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/2565/packagei.th.jpg (http://img641.imageshack.us/i/packagei.jpg/)

Collecting PlayStation memory cards has become quite an enjoyable hobby of mine. The diversity of the plain jane 3rd party memory cards is tremendous and there’s just all kinds of licensed collectable memory cards. It might surprise some to learn that the far more interesting cards are generally found in Europe and not Japan.


Does the fake actually work? The circuit board traces look suspiciously like the ones in a 3 pack I had. 1 was DOA, 1 took out a few hundred hours of saves when it died. and I cashed out on the last one.
BTW why do these fakes always have have a massive circuit board trace covering 90% of the front of the board? Anyone who sees that should run away as the card is garbage. That is about as good of an indicator as the (sarcasm) rat droppings on the other side.

Real ones never have traces on the front save for a rare Atmel/Motorola 2-chip that I have never heard of outside of early greys (These don't have a revision letter on the back btw)

[megasdkirby]

I only have third party PS1 memory cards(Interact and Mad Cats) and I have never had any problems with them. They are now 10+ years old and still work fine.

This.

I've had a PSOne memory card since around 1999, from EBGames. To this day, it has worked flawlessly. I also never remove the card from the console, unless I want to back it up using...

The Interact Dex Drive!

Really, the Dex Drive is wonderful. The ability to transfer to a PC is fantastic. I would make a backup of my completed game and transfer the backup to the PC. Then just to be sure the transferred file was good, I would take another memory card and transfer the file from the PC to the other card and load it on the PSOne. If it loaded (99.9% of the time), then I knew it was a perfect copy backup.

[spongerob]

Oh man, memory cards. There's something I don't miss at all.

I'd suggest going to Amazon and sites like Craigslist and getting real Sony branded ones. You're just running a bigger risk of losing all your data using some junky third party one. Even semi-respectable third party cards I've noticed will crap out more frequently. It's not worth the few bucks you'll save. The compression and decompression on the cards is just sloppily pasted together.

And like it's been said already, get a Dex Drive. Backup your saves. I lost a card years ago full of multiple RPG files and Fighter Maker character edits. Hundreds upon hundreds of hours lost. Always backup everything.

Awesome post by Spartacus too.

[spongerob]

As someone who has collected official and 3rd party PlayStation memory cards for a hobby, I know a photo showing the back of a PlayStation memory card is far more informative than a picture of the front.
Take these two cards, for example.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/425/frontuc.th.jpg (http://img808.imageshack.us/i/frontuc.jpg/)

Viewed from the front, the average person might assume both to be official Sony memory cards. The cases, front and back, are almost identical down to the smallest detail. But when viewed from the back, it’s easy to see that the real Sony memory card on the left has a chip on the memory card. The fake memory card on the right has round black blobs that substitute for chips.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/408/backrq.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/backrq.jpg/)

Official Sony memory cards never substituted chips with blobs, but some official Sony memory cards, mostly the original grays, have two chips inside. Some 3rd party memory cards will have a chip and a blob, but practically every fake or 3rd party PlayStation memory card has a black blob somewhere on the card. The only exceptions being Nyko PlayStation cards and most of the multiple MB memory cards.

Even when in the original packaging, the unsuspecting might think they are purchasing an official Sony PlayStation memory card, when in fact, they aren’t. These two look pretty official at first glance, but notice the one on the right has Psone on the memory card. Official Sony PlayStation memory cards never have Psone on the card.

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/2565/packagei.th.jpg (http://img641.imageshack.us/i/packagei.jpg/)

Collecting PlayStation memory cards has become quite an enjoyable hobby of mine. The diversity of the plain jane 3rd party memory cards is tremendous and there’s just all kinds of licensed collectable memory cards. It might surprise some to learn that the far more interesting cards are generally found in Europe and not Japan.

Years ago I found a third party multiple mb card with a voice recorder on it. It was a pain to operate but it was pretty cool, just as a novelty. Ever heard of one of those? Mine died on me, though I was just using it as a massive backup unit because I expected the failure.

[RPG_Fanatic]

As someone who has collected official and 3rd party PlayStation memory cards for a hobby, I know a photo showing the back of a PlayStation memory card is far more informative than a picture of the front.
Take these two cards, for example.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/425/frontuc.th.jpg (http://img808.imageshack.us/i/frontuc.jpg/)

Viewed from the front, the average person might assume both to be official Sony memory cards. The cases, front and back, are almost identical down to the smallest detail. But when viewed from the back, it’s easy to see that the real Sony memory card on the left has a chip on the memory card. The fake memory card on the right has round black blobs that substitute for chips.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/408/backrq.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/backrq.jpg/)

Official Sony memory cards never substituted chips with blobs, but some official Sony memory cards, mostly the original grays, have two chips inside. Some 3rd party memory cards will have a chip and a blob, but practically every fake or 3rd party PlayStation memory card has a black blob somewhere on the card. The only exceptions being Nyko PlayStation cards and most of the multiple MB memory cards.

Even when in the original packaging, the unsuspecting might think they are purchasing an official Sony PlayStation memory card, when in fact, they aren’t. These two look pretty official at first glance, but notice the one on the right has Psone on the memory card. Official Sony PlayStation memory cards never have Psone on the card.

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/2565/packagei.th.jpg (http://img641.imageshack.us/i/packagei.jpg/)

Collecting PlayStation memory cards has become quite an enjoyable hobby of mine. The diversity of the plain jane 3rd party memory cards is tremendous and there’s just all kinds of licensed collectable memory cards. It might surprise some to learn that the far more interesting cards are generally found in Europe and not Japan.

Thanks for showing me the difference. Now I know what to look for.

[davidbrit2]

I've had several of those silver Mad Catz multi memory cards (with the little red rocker switch for changing pages), and I've had zero problems with them, aside from the connection to the little LCD on the card getting flaky. That can make it a bit tough to see what page you're on, but I've never had any data loss with these cards. They don't use any compression nonsense like other cards, which is the main reason the others end up corrupting themselves. The Mad Catz variety just uses simple bank switching.

Here's a random link to one for sale if you're wondering what they look like. They come in 8 and 32 page varieties.
http://accessorywarehouse.com/high-capacity-memory-card-for-playstation-1-2-p-66209.html

[Parodius Duh!]

FYI, japanese memory cards will work fine in a US system as well, might be cheaper to find them.


The only third party cards I would EVER suggest using would be Kemco brand.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Those multi-page memory cards never seemed to work on my PS2 slim. I guess they work fine on normal PS1s.

Edit: If you have a softmodded PS2 (with freemcboot) you should be able to use the included file manager to back up and restore PS1 saves directly, without a DexDrive. In theory, anyway.

[Enigmus]

Personally, unless you're recording movie data in Gran Turismo 2, stick with first party cards. If the game takes too much room, get the Mega Memory Card. Some say they crap out easily, but it depends on build quality and how much it's been used. I have an InterAct MMC made in 2000, and it's been fine except for hiccups on C2 (block C page 2) from being taken care of over the years. That and first party cards should do fine.

[Aussie2B]

I've weeded out the obvious fakes in my collection, but I'm guessing I probably have at least one or two that look too similar for me to make the call short of cracking them open. I haven't had any issues, so I'm not concerned. I'd stay far away from the multi-page cards, but if they have the usual 15 blocks, they tend to be reliable.

[Steve W]

I've got a question... are PS1 memory cards region-locked? I bought a few Japanese ones in a thrift store earlier this year, thinking I would use them if and whenever I find an import PS1. I bought them because I thought I'd read something about memory cards being coded to only work in certain regions.

[heybtbm]

Just get a DexDrive (http://www.amazon.com/Interact-DexDrive/dp/B00000K4EI). It's amazing Amazon still sells these new.

...or a PS3 and one of these (http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-3-Memory-Card-Adaptor/dp/B000K1GZIU/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1293494639&sr=1-1).

[Aussie2B]

So just for the fun of it, I decided to go through my cards using Spartacus' great info for spotting fakes. I'm really surprised that none of the cards I acquired through buying PlayStation lots are fakes. The only fake I discovered was a clear one that my fiance had from before he met me, which makes sense since he bought it in Chinatown. So just how common is it to come across cards that are trying to fool people into thinking they're Sony brand? Are they still being made in China and invading the available pool of cards? The PlayStation lots I've bought were from people who probably had the stuff since the PlayStation was still alive, so it seems to me like they would be more likely to either have a legit card or cards that aren't hiding that they're third party.

[Parodius Duh!]

I've got a question... are PS1 memory cards region-locked? I bought a few Japanese ones in a thrift store earlier this year, thinking I would use them if and whenever I find an import PS1. I bought them because I thought I'd read something about memory cards being coded to only work in certain regions.

I posted the answer to this already....No, they are not. they will work fine in a US ps1...probably european ps1 systems as well...100% region free

[Kitsune Sniper]

Just get a DexDrive (http://www.amazon.com/Interact-DexDrive/dp/B00000K4EI). It's amazing Amazon still sells these new.

...or a PS3 and one of these (http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-3-Memory-Card-Adaptor/dp/B000K1GZIU/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1293494639&sr=1-1).

Too bad they never released a USB version of that.

[exit]

I have 3 memory cards, an official Sony one, a Lara Croft shaped one and 2 in 1 that I got on clearance at Target a few years back. The Official Sony card had trouble loading at times (probably due to age and abuse) but the other two worked perfectly find last time I used them.

I remember the Mega Memory Card being an unpredictable POS, my buddy at the time had one when he first got his PSX and at one point all of the saved disappeared, then they decided to re-appear soon after he restarted his games. Around that time I had gotten my own PSX and got a MMC as well (before his messed up) and it straight up didn't work, so I exchanged it for an officail one instead.

I'd say just got for a regular third party one if the official ones are priced too high.

[Spartacus]

I've only had some issues with a few of the the multiple-page mega memory cards. 3rd party memory cards have worked pretty well for me, so I have no problem with using them. I do think that the official Sony cards are of better quality -electronics wise. If a person felt that game saves are extremely important, then they would probably be better off sticking with the Sony cards.

I often mix game saves from import games, both PAL and Japanese, on a single memory card and there's never been any issues doing that. Nor have I ever had to reformat a memory card that I bought from Europe or Japan. Memory cards are surprisingly trouble free region wise.

Where do the counterfeit PlayStation cards come from? Good question. I only collect PS1 memory cards that are still in the original packaging and most of the phony cards I see are loose. I do have a few that are in a blister pack with cardboard backing that look pretty darn official -packaging wise, but all of them say PSone on the memory card. A sure giveaway that it's not a Sony card, despite the PlayStation name and trade mark boldy printed on the packaging.

Here's a picture of what appears to be an official boxed Japanese Sony card.

http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/5138/frontas.th.jpg (http://img210.imageshack.us/i/frontas.jpg/)

http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9561/backaf.th.jpg (http://img28.imageshack.us/i/backaf.jpg/)

It's definately NOT a Sony memory card, but the person buying it wouldn't know until they took the card out of the box. I bought that on Ebay from a seller in the US, by the way.

Here's a picture of a boxed Japanese Sony card I purchased from Japan on Yahoo Japan.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/8180/jfront.th.jpg (http://img291.imageshack.us/i/jfront.jpg/)

http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/2564/jback.th.jpg (http://img341.imageshack.us/i/jback.jpg/)

It is a real Sony card. But if someone was going by the packaging alone, I think they would have a tough time distinguishing the two.

By the way, I've never run across a counterfeit solid gray PlayStation memory card, except those that had PSone - not PlayStation, printed on the card. That's good to know because the only way you can verify them is by physically taking them apart. The solid gray's are the most common and the easiest to find and also the most likely to contain ATMEL as well as Sony chips.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, that is helpful. Not that it's terribly hard to open a card, but still. Seems counterproductive from the viewpoint of the counterfeiters, though. If they're trying to fool people, wouldn't they want to use an opaque case to hide the fact that they're not using chips like Sony?