Your experiences with third party memory cards

[Tatsu]

Are they really as bad as some people say? I've hard from several people that using third party memory cards is quite risky. They tend to produce errors like data loss and other failures. I have one original memory card for the PS2, and never occured any problems. I need to get a new one today and again I chose an original one (ok, I didn't see any third party card...).

I have about six PS1 memory cards, three of them came bundled together with a game and were about 7$. Of course those are not original memory cards... But I never had any problems with them either, and they are maybe three years old. So is this third party memory card thingy rather an urban legend? I'm keen to hear your experiences!

[importaku]

when i used to own a ps1 i used to have a 3rd party card & it worked perfectly for months. Then one day when i was playing i got the data is damaged error & it would no longer load any of my saves.

I lost everything thtat was on the card including my FF7 save, from then on i vowed never to get 3rd party cards.

[Promophile]

Yes 3rd party memory cards are probally the worst 3rd party accessory you can buy. To be honest just about every 3rd party accessory is crap (controllers, Game speakers, game cases, ect). But really why risk hundreds or thousands of hours of your game saves to save 5-10 dollars?

[legov8]

I have two 3rd party memoryv cards for my Ninyendo 64 and they still work.

[slip81]

I think it depends on the company you choose. Some third party cards, like the Nyko ones for the GC are licensed by Nintendo, and they seem to work fine.

but still I wouldn't say that any third party product is as reliable as a first party one.

In the end if you want to get a third party card, just put less important saves on them like I do, that way if anything happens is no big deal.

[Mayhem]

To quote Grange Hill (an old kids show here in the UK): "Just say no!" (anyone my age in the UK will get that now!)

Third party memory cards are the worst thing in hell. Never buy them now because they have always crapped up on me in the past and with plenty of other people.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

when i used to own a ps1 i used to have a 3rd party card & it worked perfectly for months. Then one day when i was playing i got the data is damaged error & it would no longer load any of my saves.

I lost everything thtat was on the card including my FF7 save, from then on i vowed never to get 3rd party cards.

Same thing happen to me.

I bought a cheap 3rd party memory card when I first bought my Playstation figuring I'd save a few bucks. However, after about a month or so using it, it decided to delete all my Tekken 2 data I had at the time.

[Putney]

I've been using a Mad Catz PS2 memory card (I think it was licensed though) since buying my PS2 over 4 years ago without a single problem. I know that's probably more the exception than the rule, and in almost every instance I try to spend a little more to get a 1st party card.

[DragonMaster Sam]

I bought this third-party memory card from a guy in my computer class during my sophomore year in high school. I haven't used it much, but when I did, I had no problems. Probably the last time it was used, MLB 2000 or '01 was saved on it, and I had no problems.

[Kamino]

BAD
BAD
BAD!!!!!!!!
I had n64 third party cards. They ALL CORRUPTED. See: Interact, Nuby, MadCatz.
Also know people with shitty cards for other systems, they do the same garbage. CORRUPT.YOUR.DATA.
I'm too cheap to buy fabric softener, twist-ties, and fast food; yet, I buy first party cards and controllers. They work. 3rd party cards do not.
~Kamino

[josekortez]

The only good ones I've ever used are the Interact ones for GameCube. EB started selling brand-new ones as pre-owned when Interact went out of business, and I haven't lost any data on them yet. Beats spending a buttload on the 1050, or however much the huge Nintendo brand cards go for.

[Fuyukaze]

I used to use 3rd party mem cards for my PS1 untill 2 out of 5 of them lost everything. After loosing my Arc The lad saves as well as my Front Mission 3 EX saves, I vowed never to use them again. You may have good luck with them, but the best investment I have had is with the DX Drive. It lets me save my memory files on my comp which has come to be very good. I just wish I could do the same for my PS2, DC, and Saturn save files.

[Ed Oscuro]

Right now I'm using a couple third party cards for my PS1, they work fine. Back in 1997 I bought one of those huge 50+ block multi-page cards (has an LED light on the front), and a few months ago I noticed it wasn't working at all anymore...I guess it worked fine for quite a while, though; ~6 years isn't too bad. Threw it against a wall LOL (I don't get many chances to vent on my gaming goods!)

[SoulBlazer]

I have several third party memory cards for my PS1 -- I know two of them are Interact, and one is Preformance, and another is MadCatz. All have worked fine. I DO have some Sony PS1 cards, and both of mine for the PS2 are Sony official. Plus my Nintendo GC cards are official. It's really only the PS1 I had any third party memory cards. And some of these cards I've used regarly since mid 1998, so I'm not worried. :)

The only third party card I HAVE had problems with was one I got with my PS1 in early 1998 -- Ed, I believe it's the same card you're talking about. It was one of those page cram cards with a LED display and you pushed a button to flip pages. Worked fine for a year or so, then started to get wonky on me, so I hurridly copied everything to other cards. I can't recall who made it or what the name was, though.

[Cmosfm]

When the Playstation came out, for Christmas, I got a FF7 and a Memory Card, it was one of those really big ones that held about 4 times the size of a normal memory card. I was pretty new to Memory cards at that time, so it sounded like a great deal!

20 Hours into FF7 - card wiped itself clean.

started over

30 Hours into FF7 - card wiped itself clean.

I then bought an official Memory card, it still holds all my saves from 10 years ago. If you can, go with a first party, if you really want a third party, DO NOT get one that holds more than an official one. I've had no problems with normal size third party cards, but I wouldn't use any for all my main saves though, it would be too scary.

[Ryaan1234]

When I bought my Gamecube I got a Madcatz 4x memory card. (3 years ago!) I used it for all my games including Zelda: Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Mario Kart:Double Dash, Luigi's Mansion, Metroid Prime, Kirby's Air Ride, Mario Party 4 & 5, and others. Most of the games were beat but not 100% (like I didn't get all the figures in Zelda or I didn't get all mice in Luigi's Mansion) and one day my memory card went corrupt! I lost all that memory that I worked so hard for :( Now, I've been working to get back to where I was on those games. (One thing I thought was unusual was that the card went corrupt after my sister played Spyro: Year of The Dragonfly. I was thinking that that game might've made it go corrupt because before I let her play Spyro I was playing Zelda and the card was fine.)

[Retsudo]

Didnt happen to me personally, but I've seen 3rd party memory card mess up the ps1 controller port.

That Nyko memory card for the PS2 is good. Well it is license by sony. My nephew has one and never had a problem with it.

[XxMe2NiKxX]

Mixed experiences. I have a pelican memory card (Brainboy, the one that haxx0rs your pokémon) for GBC that works perfectly fine and without corruption for four years, but I got one of those 4X memory cards for dreamcast, destroyed my SA2 save and my PSO character (85 RaCast).

[Ed Oscuro]

The only third party card I HAVE had problems with was one I got with my PS1 in early 1998 -- Ed, I believe it's the same card you're talking about. It was one of those page cram cards with a LED display and you pushed a button to flip pages. Worked fine for a year or so, then started to get wonky on me, so I hurridly copied everything to other cards. I can't recall who made it or what the name was, though.
Nah, I've seen the ones you're talking about...with mine you had to press a button combo to flip pages when you turned the PlayStation on. Horrible, horrible, and I probably never used most of the pages :o

The brand was...well, I don't see a brand. There's two datel chips inside, a "Microchip" (?) brand chip, and the PCB has a datel marking...the outer case for the thing says "Massive Memory Card 1440," and that actually was probably how many blocks it had (56 pages or something? I don't know the standard number of blocks per card...)

As for Mad Katz, I used one for a few months that I'd borrowed...didn't cause any trouble.

For other systems, I haven't ever had a problem or had data go bad, but I've only used first party cards for the GC, XBox, and N64 (whatever those are called).

[FooFighter]

I've never had problems with any 3rd party memory cards.......yet. Although I try to by the official ones.

Now if you want to discuss those cheap 3rd party controllers.........

[Cryomancer]

I love 1st party N64 memory paks. Why? Evertime i have mine around other people, "what the hell is that?". Apparently nobody knows what a real n64 pak looks like...Interestinly enough it DID corrupt a couple times...but it fixed itself. That rules. I think it might eb dying now or something though, I can't seem to find my old goemon save.

Generally I don't see a point to the 3rd party cards anyway with a few exceptions. AR type stuff that lets you save to a harddrive is fine, since you can take it off the card and have it stored even safer-ly, as long as your HD holds out. The saturn 4-in-1 AR is awesome for various reasons, and I tend to keep backups of my saves on it. I don't expect them to stay for all time though obviously.

DC memory you really don't have much of an excuse to buy 3rd party since VMUs are awesome and dirty cheap, and the official 4x cards don't cost much more either. Cube cards, I just buy the black ones used. 10 bucks usually, that's a good deal. Sony cards seem terribly overpriced to me, I still don't own a ps2 card to call my own. Now that I think about it the one i generally use might be 3rd party, i'm not sure. It seems stable enough so far though. I'd LIKE to get a card but what, they're like 25-30 bucks? Jeez. I'll wait for the Hori ones to show up maybe and get orange or camo...

[Tatsu]

According to most of the replies bad experiences with third party memory cards make the majority and it's not just an urban legend. Seems like I've been only lucky with the cards I use (btw. the brand of my cards is Brooklyn, anybody knows it?).

I've asked the same question in another forum and there only one guy had a bad experience. But I didn't get as much replies as in this thread an one guy working in a gamestore told me that he hears a lot of stories about corupted third party memory carts at work.

Anyway, keep your comments comming!

[sleepycal]

I've really only used 3rd party memory cards on my PSX.

My experience is the same as those using the "enhanced" memory cards.

I had an 8 pager (press button to get the lights to go in different combinations to represent the different pages). It eventually got to the point where it wouldn't switch pages anymore, so I was stuck w/ the saves on that page, and the 40+ blocks of other saves were all lost.

Super Memory card 8000, I believe it was called.

I've used an official (I think - or a very clever copy) Sony orange memory card that has been rock solid.

Also used the "Tomb Raider" character memory card w/ no problems. The Spider-Man character card has been fine so far (but hasn't had as much use). And I used a Super Memory card 1000 (yeah, same maker as the one that crapped on me) which didn't have separate pages, and that worked just fine too.

Once prices dropped though, I switched to official sony cards. Now I have a crimson, emerald, Island blue, and orange cards. And a bunch of 3rd party ones too for fun.

[Berserker]

I've only ever had experience with one third party memory card, and that's the Nyko 64mb card for the Gamecube.

It has much higher storage capacity than the first party card I bought when I purchased the system... the only problem is, it gets wonky every once in a while and claims that the "data file is corrupted". I'm pretty sure this isn't game-specific, as it's done it on a few different games.

The first time this happened, my sister was playing the cube in her room, and she followed the games recommendation to reformat the card... ack. ALL of my savegame data from Mario Sunshine, Windwaker, and Metroid Prime was launched into the void, never to return. Later on we found out that when it gives that error, you can just shut the system off and turn it back on and everything runs fine, data intact.

So just a recommendation based on prior experience: Don't reformat the card unless you absotively posilutely HAVE to. Of course, that follows precedence behind my second recommendation, which is: Don't buy third party memory cards unless you absolutely positively HAVE to. ;)

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

I remember having lots of issues with the Memory Card Plus for the PS1. I'd press the button to switch pages and all of my data would vanish, never to return.

[poopnes]

I only buy and use first party memory cards. We've all heard the stories, and I don't want to live one myself. I've never had a first party card go bad on me (Sony, Sega, Nintendo).

There was one time I bought a $5 GC 3rd party standard 59 memory card from EB. I thought, well for $5 it might be worth it. Wrong. It would constantly erase itself.

At least for me I only buy first party.

[jdc]

I don't recommend them when it comes to Sony consoles. With Sony you HAVE to go 1st party. The N64 can be a bit touchy as well, unless it's from a major 3rd party manufacturer. The Cube's a tough little guy. I haven't seen a card that it hates yet.

[devilman]

Never really had problems with third-party memory cards across all formats. I've own the multi-page PS1 cards (3 I think - all fine) and also for the DC too.

The only time I've seen a problem with an unofficial memory card was on a mate's Gamecube when I pointed out that Super Monkey Ball was taking an age to save his game. He assumed it was normal till I showed him my Cube and memory card (also unofficial but a different brand)

[Link_Chrono]

I have a 3rd party 16meg memory card for my Gamecube. It's pretty dodgy, if you leave it in the Gamecube while playing it, it tends to overheat and corrupt random save files. It took me 10 times longer than it should've to complete Pikmin cos of that damn thing x_x

[Promophile]

Yeah my friend had one of those multi-page compressed memory cards. Ended up losing ALL his PS saves too.