Are off brand Gamecube memory cards any good?

[OldSchoolGamer]

I have several original Nintendo standard memory cards. In addition I have the following:

1. NYKO 64MB
2. 3x NYKO 8MB
3. PELICAN 59 BLOCKS of memory
4. MADCATZ 1x Memory card

Now I listed them above just as they are labeled on the card.
Are any of them good or bad? Recommended or discouraged? THANKS.

[Voliko]

I have a MADCATZ one and it blows. It is twice the physical size of the official nintendo memory card, and it has a pityful 59 blocks of memory.

[Porksta]

I never buy third party accessories. Ever. I have heard bad things about GC memory cards in particular. I guess some companies glue the innards together, instead of solder. Lot of people complain about losing all their data. I just sucked it up and paid $20 for a 1019 card. Fits everything I need.

[BetaWolf47]

There's a ton of horror stories of 3rd-party cards going corrupt. There my be some decent ones out there, but you're better off just sticking with 1st-party ones.

I actually have a horror story of my own. Mid 2002, I was getting worried about space running out on my Memory Card 59, the only official one out at the time. I decided to look for a new one. I saw an ad for a high-density one in the paper: Interact Memory Card 16x.

I got excited at the thought. Surely, if I got this one, I'd never, ever need to buy another memory card again! I begged my parents to get it sometime soon, and obtained it within the next few days. I opened up the Gamecube BIOS, and checked the capacity. Sure enough, a whopping 2043 blocks!

Foolishly, I copied everything over to that memory card: 007 - Agent Under Fire, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Star Wars - Rogue Leader, Luigi's Mansion, and one other game... then shelved my memory card 59. Big mistake. Almost exactly two weeks later, poof. "The memory card in slot A has been corrupted."

[Dr. Dib]

As others have mentioned, they become corrupted way to easily. Supposedly the 1019 memory card also becomes corrupted more easily than the 256 and 59 as well. Your best bet is to probably stick with the official ones though.

Unless of course Datel's is any good...

[BetaWolf47]

I think there are a few decent brands. I haven't heard any horror stories about the Datel or Nyko ones specifically.

[heybtbm]

The official 1st party 1019 cards still show up on Amazon every so often. I just bought an extra one a few months ago for $19.

[Cryomancer]

I never use third-party memory devices unless they offer a *major* feature over the officials, which pretty much has to be the ability to connect it to a PC and back them up before I'll remotely trust it. I use official 251s for Cube myself.

This reminds me of how people have no idea what the official N64 memory unit looks like. Anytime people saw mine they would ask what the hell it was. I guess everyone was used to those big ugly third party ones you saw everywhere.

[BetaWolf47]

This reminds me of how people have no idea what the official N64 memory unit looks like. Anytime people saw mine they would ask what the hell it was. I guess everyone was used to those big ugly third party ones you saw everywhere.

The ones by Performance? Those were pretty nice, actually.

[heybtbm]

This reminds me of how people have no idea what the official N64 memory unit looks like. Anytime people saw mine they would ask what the hell it was.

I still don't know what the hell the N64 memory thing was even for. I guess I have an old Doom 64 save on there. MK64 Ghost saves. That's all I remember.

[Leo_A]

I bought two MadCatz "4X" cards (Unsure what that equates to in terms of blocks and mb's) in a double pack for $15 when I purchased my GameCube and preordered Wind Waker to get the Ocarina of Time bonus disc back in 2003. They've been flawless since and one resides in a GameCube and the second one in a Wii.

I'm able to just about fit saves for my entire collection on a single cartridge (Probably have about 35 of my 40 games with a game save on one right now). I've been quite pleased with the purchase in the years since.

Just to point this out for future referance, these two GameCube threads really belong in the modern gaming forum.

[hbkprm]

i bought a 3rd party mc for gc never got currupted

[JSoup]

I'm not a fan of any of the GCN memory cards, first party or otherwise. I think I just had bad luck with that system, as the cards I have suddenly work fine when plugged into my Wii.

[BetaWolf47]

I'm not a fan of any of the GCN memory cards, first party or otherwise. I think I just had bad luck with that system, as the cards I have suddenly work fine when plugged into my Wii.

Sounds like a dirty card port to me.

[Berserker]

I have a NYKO 64 MB that I've been using forever. Really snappy at saving/loading, and obviously tons of space.

On one particular game I have (Super Mario Sunshine), every once in a great while it'll pop up a box saying something to the effect of "The memory card in slot X has become corrupted. Would you like to reformat it?"... if you ever see something like that, SAY NO. Restart the console and it should load it up fine. At least that's been my experience. I've never had it genuinely go bad on me.

[InsaneDavid]

I still don't know what the hell the N64 memory thing was even for. I guess I have an old Doom 64 save on there. MK64 Ghost saves. That's all I remember.

Really, to save your progress in the N64 Goemon games.

[Jorpho]

I gather no one's ever made a suitable SD card adapter? (Of course there are things like the SD Media Launcher, but that doesn't actually let you use the SD card for saves.)