Eternia

Ok I have my Batman Veneange game saved on the memory card I bought. Just picked up Super Smash Bros Melee at Best buy today with my 10% off coupon since we have their card. Now here is my question. can i save that stuff on the card too? i just do not want that batman stuff erased since i am pretty far and do not want to have to repeat everything. many thanks!

Thunderball

As long as you have enough space on it, you can have as many games as you want on it.

YOu can turn on the system w/o a game in, and go to the Memory Card option, and see what kind of space you have left.

Groucho

The box of every game tells you how many blocks it uses up.

cmk

Anyone know how many megabytes "59" blocks is?
It so dammn annoying, their arcane phrasing.

ClarkKentKY

But 1/16th the size of the PS2 memory card. And for only half the price

xmiyux

Well they have to make up a little bit o' cash from the 100$ price diff between the cube and the ps2

Get Me Coffee

When do you expect to see generic memory cards?

Groucho

I have a question: does anybody know if the Cube can recognize cards of bigger than 59 blocks? One problem with the N64 was that it only recognized cards of a certain size, which meant that with cards of more memory you had to "switch" what section of the card you were saving to.

Lethal Nemesis

What do you mean by "generic"? If you're referring to 3rd party memory cards, I would stay away from them and stick with Nintendo licensed cards.

maninthebox

Any word out there on when we will see the SD Memory Card Adapter? It is listed on the Nintendo website, but I can't find a release date anywhere.

Get Me Coffee

Why do you say that? I guess I've been very lucky with 3rd party memory cards. But I'll have to compare prices before choosing Nintendo or 3rd party, because right now Nintendos $14ish prices is pretty fair to me.

darkside

The SD card adaptor can hold up to a 64 MB SD card. That's the way I'm going. That one memory card should be good for everything.

Aghama

I've emailed IGN's Q&A/Letter bag several times asking about this among other things, but no response. I'm of the opinion that splitting the market between their card and the SD memory card is a bad idea; it's doubtful that many developers will take advantage of the additional space possible.

Liver&Onions

512k

Rogue Leader takes 3 blocks, Crazy Taxi takes 4. I think Madden Takes 59

That's all I know...

Soybean

According to the GC's manual, the 'Cube can recognize a maximum of 127 blocks. It mentions that a card with 127 blocks will be released in the future. By my calculations, that's about 1102KB. Booooooo. That means we'll probably have to switch between 64 sets of blocks if you use a 64 MB SD card w/ the Digicard SD adapter. That's simply ludicrous.

You know what else angers me? That Nintendo games, instead of letting you save as many files per game as you want, force you to have one large save file per memory card which contains 3 saved games. So if i wanted 6 games of Luigi's Mansion saved, I'd need a separate memory card. What the hell is up with that? I want every saved game to have its own file. I want to be able to have 400 Mario Sunshine save files on one card if I want, dammit.

Drexl

Well, I don't know if that limitation is entirely accurate, because I've read conflicting reports-some say 127 blocks, some say 127 files. I REALLY hope it's 127 files. That way, a game that takes more than one block (all of the ones I've seen so far) will only take up one file per save. So, a saved season or franchise in Madden would be 59 blocks, but only one file.

Actually, Madden can take up more than one card for rosters (40 blocks), user profiles (3 blocks each, and this includes Madden cards each user has earned), settings (2 blocks), etc. I think the reason a season takes up 59 blocks is because at the end of a season, you're able to convert it to a franchise if you want to continue playing. My theory is that EA is reserving extra space in case you decide to do that, so you won't put another file on the card and not have enough room at the end of the season. Also, I think rosters include created players, and EA could again be reserving space (for a certain number of potential created players).

Frankly, I'm pretty peeved at Nintendo for this memory card issue, and I think it's the only real mistake they've made so far with the 'Cube. Interact is coming out with a 16x (8MB) memory card sometime early next year, and I'll probably end up getting that one. According to their website, they have thoroughly tested it to virtually eliminate lost saves. I'll take that with a grain of salt and check the reviews. Personally, I think it may be worth the risk.

The SD adapter sounds promising, but like many good things for GameCube, it won't be out until next year-probably in the second half. Now, the 127-file (and/or or -block, if that's true) limitation is for the memory card interface in the console. It's possible that the SD adapter will overcome this limitation in some way (and may just be the reason for its existence in the first place, although I hear it's supposed to facilitate faster transfer of data as well). I sure hope so.

darkside

127 files will be perfect, because I doubt I will ever need to save 127 different games at one time. I'm waiting for the SD adaptor. I can never trust Interact again.

Drexl

Soybean, you'll be happy to know that your calculations are not correct.

The limitation is 127 files, not blocks. That means that each game save (represented by the floating cubes in the memory card manager), while taking up more than one block, only takes up one file. Even though the season or franchise mode in Madden takes up 59 blocks, it's still only one file. So, most games will only take up one file (although Madden can use a few more, for settings, rosters, a user profile, etc.). The current memory cards have only 59 blocks . Let's say the average number of blocks a game takes up is 8-10. On the current memory cards, that would be 5-7 files on a 59-block memory card full of game saves.

This is also the reason why some games let you have multiple save slots even if only one person is playing and saving progress. If each saved game was a different file, it may take up fewer blocks, but it would mean the limitation of 127 files would be reached faster. Pikmin takes up 19 blocks. If only one person is playing, that saved game should only take up 6-7 blocks if each game was a separate file. Nintendo must have reserved those extra blocks so that if up to two other people decide to play, the saved games won't take up any additional files. Also, in Madden, the rosters take up 40 blocks so that you can create several of your own players without each created player taking up a file of its own.

It would be nice if they would let you choose whether or not you want to reserve blocks for potential other users, so that if it's just you it would take up fewer blocks, but oh well.

I don't think this limitation will be much of an issue. Factoring in the 3-5 files a typical sports game might use, I think the average number of files taken up per game will be less than 2. That allows for data for more than 60 different game titles saved. I don't know if the limitation applies to each memory card slot or both of them combined, but I would think that if you actually have more than 60 games in your collection, you wouldn't really mind taking out the memory cards and swapping them for other ones, would you? Of course, it's possible that the SD Adapter will overcome this limitation by allowing you to flip through "pages" of memory, by making the system think you took out the memory cards and put new ones in.

Groucho

I can see how the manual can be confusing on this. I read it (for the first time heh heh) this morning and it says that the cube can save up to 127 different files, for when cards of 127 blocks or more are released in the future.

The SD card is supposed to hold 64 meg. That's the equivalent of 125 cards. I imagine that it would be enough for the entire lifecycle of a Cube, unless you really enjoy saving snapshots in SSB:M or replays in Super Monkey Ball. I wonder if the SD card will be slower/faster than the standard memory cards? I'm also wondering about the cost.

As it stands right now, you can probably use one memory card for every five non-sports titles you play. That averages out to only an extra $3 per card...even less if you delete the files from older games. Personally, I still have all my memory card saves from the N64...I haven't deleted anything...even files from games I rented and only played once.

Soybean

Well that's relieving. I'm glad to hear that. It would still be better if there was no limit at all, though. I'll still need multiple memory cards, though, in case I want to save more than 3 games with future Nintendo titles. Sometimes I just like to have a save file right before a really cool boss or cutscene. Isn't that allowed? Why does Nintendo hate me?

Travis Bickle

I just purchased a Game Cube with Madden 2002 last night. I think it's great. But I am concerned a little with this whole memory card issue. It appears that it will take one whole memory card to store a season of Madden Football. Correct? Also, can you delete out old files, basically cleaning out the memory card if you wanted to start over with a new season? Or do you have to purchase a new memory card every time. Just looking for clarification. Thanks!

Mezzanine

Yes, many sports games will take up the entire card. It would be nice if EA and other companies would offer an option that would take up less memory card space... For example, let us play a season that saves our win/loss record but not every little stat. If they did that, a season game save would take up very little space. Hopefully they'll be more considerate and offer such a feature in future games.

To answer your other question, yes you can delete your old game saves to make space for a new season.

tanman

Two points to bring up.
One panasonic has teamed up with nintendo to bring the game cube to us. Therefore Panasonic will want to push its technology in the lime light. Panasonic is one of the companies pushing the multimedia card. therefore nintendo advertises compatability, but that does not mean that it will definately come out. nintendo may not use the MMC at all deaming it to be of little use. not the first time. by the way you can get a SanDisk MMC for 52$ at cameraworld.com. not saying that if it does come out that it will be compatible with the GCN.