Sega Saturn memory cartidge

[SkiDragon]

I may buy one of these soon. I have always heard that the official ones are the only kind that allow direct saving, and I figure it might be more reliable. I also heard that the official Japanese version was cheaper (and functioned the same), but I've never seen one.

Also, can anybody tell me if the memory cart is battery backed, or if it uses some sort of non-volatile flash-type memory?

Thanks.

[SnowKitty]

I may buy one of these soon. I have always heard that the official ones are the only kind that allow direct saving, and I figure it might be more reliable. I also heard that the official Japanese version was cheaper (and functioned the same), but I've never seen one.

Also, can anybody tell me if the memory cart is battery backed, or if it uses some sort of non-volatile flash-type memory?

Thanks.

the cartridges are region free. a jap memory cart is identical to a usa version (aside from the outer shell and label of course) and the official ones do NOT use batteries, they use flash memory.

[SkiDragon]

I haven't seen these anywhere but eBay. Is there any other source I should know about? Either version is fine by me, whatever is cheapest.

[Cinder6]

I got a Japanese one for, I think, $12 shipped off of Play-Asia. Works perfectly.

[SkiDragon]

This looks like what you are referring to:
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-...n-70-1rus.html

Unfortunately it is sold out.

[SnowKitty]

http://home.clara.net/robwebb/shop/s...saturnhard.htm you can get japanese ones here, kinda expensive though.

[Cinder6]

Whoops, I meant JapanGameStock. Here.

[SkiDragon]

So is that website reliable? Browsing through it, there are a lot of things for good prices that I may want to pick up.

[Cinder6]

I've bought a couple things from them, and haven't had problems, even without tracking (*knocks on wood*). They are actually pretty fast, considering their location relative to mine. Right now I have Vampire Savior 2 for the Saturn + the 4MB RAM cart in the mail. They give good status notifications, too.

[SkiDragon]

I ended up purchasing a few things. Good prices, but expensive shipping. Thanks for the info.

[Cinder6]

What size items did you get? I know they ship from Japan, but I've found shipping to be very reasonable. For example, shipping on the memory cart was $3 or $4, and Vampire Savior for the Saturn + 4MB RAM cart was $5.

[SkiDragon]

"(Shipping to US : 1.87 kg(s)): 24.86USD"

I also bought a Famicom, a cheap game, the Saturn RAM cart, and a Super Famicom controller. I guess that made the shipping shoot up quite a bit.
The stuff came in today, and the memory cart seems to work fine.

[Cinder6]

The Famicom is probably the main culprit, since it would make the box bigger. I got my package the other day, and it was just a heavily taped brown paper bag with a lot of padding on the inside

[logsofhod]

the cartridges are region free. a jap memory cart is identical to a usa version (aside from the outer shell and label of course) and the official ones do NOT use batteries, they use flash memory.

I've pasted some photos in the following thread relating to the official saturn memory cart, mine had a battery..

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show....php?p=1323747