Your experiences with third party memory cards

[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.