The Memory Card: What Happened?

[neonsword13-ops]

Memory Cards. I'm sure you know the term. (If you're a console gamer)

So my simple question is: What Happened to Them?

I've been a console gamer ever since my first N64. I remember the day I went to the store with my parents and they bought me Donkey Kong 64. That game couldn't play UNLESS you had a memory pack inserted into the console. The cartridge was pretty bulky and unusual. I never really used it afterwards.


In the PS2 and Gamecube era, I was ecstatic about memory cards. The thought of bringing your roster of Super Smash Bros. Characters or Pokemon set to a friends house just boggled my mind at that tender age. PS2 allowed me to save my many game files on one little rectangular chip. I mean, That Kingdom Hearts data wasn't going to show it's self off, ya know! The cards were small and compact and were able to fit in slots built inside the game cases/boxes.

Now this is the part that bothered me. I have a PS3 and XBOX 360, (Both are the newer, slimmer versions.) and both have internal harddrives. Not interchangeable little chips you can take where ever you want, big bulky motha's that need to stay in the console. Now, me and my friends all have different variations of the same console so we all have different types of memory units. No one can bring over that awesome saved clip they were waiting to show off or some nice story data you can just pick up in co-op where all the good stuff is. It is all "data is uploaded to cloud" or "saved data only capatable with one console".
I'm kind of sick of it.

Can someone please just explain to me what happened over the years where making a harddrive is a necessity and it makes memory cards obsolete?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

They became integrated into consoles as Hard Disk Drive space became more compact, and more memory was able to be stored on the console itself without an external drive. This alone is reason enough to phase out memory cards.

It sucks that, like you said, we aren't able to transfer save games over to other consoles, but that is more of the social stigma that plagues the gaming industry. Why let your friend play on your save when they can force him to buy the game himself?

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

You can still get usb to memory card connectors. So it is possible to still use them if you want. I've been thinking of buying one for a while now.

 

[redisforever]

You can do that with the 360, I think. Not sure.

 

[Chainsaw_Chuck]

With the 360 you can use a regular old flashdrive as a memory-card.

The older 360 had an actuall memory card with it's own special slots, but Microsoft did away with those after they realized that nobody wanted to buy an over-priced, low-space device that doesn't have too many applications besides the things you mentioned.

 

[bipolarpatient]

It started with the first XBOX, which had a built in hard drive which also brought about quick saving and checkpoints into console gaming I remember it was one of the appeals of the XBOX that me and my brother would rave on about.

 

[Episode42]

With the 360 you can use a regular old flashdrive as a memory-card.

Yeah, the PS3 does the same thing, i often use Memory sticks to transfer game saves between my PS3s. Although some of them are hard-locked onto the console, but so far the only one i've found this with is Heavy Rain.

 

[enzilewulf]

They were put into the consoles.... so we don't have to buy them...

 

[Von Strimmer]

With the 360 you can use a regular old flashdrive as a memory-card.

The older 360 had an actuall memory card with it's own special slots, but Microsoft did away with those after they realized that nobody wanted to buy an over-priced, low-space device that doesn't have too many applications besides the things you mentioned.

Every time I tried that with a different console it said I had to reformat it :/

On the topic of the 360 you can buy a cable to transfer data from one hard drive to another however the cable costs quite a bit (i am lead to believe) and you still need to carry your 360 everywhere.

Apart from that everything is online nowadays so it doesn't matter about memory cards. The price of progress I'm afraid.

 

[twistedmic]

Soon enough they'll develop sub-cranial micro-data chips that will let you interface directly with the console and save/download the information directly into you brain and then upload the data into other electronic data storage devices (i.e. consoles, t.v.s, computers, other people's brains).

 

[Logic 0]

They were also pretty durable, easy to replace and cheap that's the part I miss the most.

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

You can still use USB drives as modern consoles function with hard drives and they have enough data that compared to older consoles you can play A LOT more games before you run out of data. The problem is that with so many good games out there it is still quite easy to run out of data, I wish someone would come out with a USB drive with about a hundred or so gigabytes of storage space so I could play my games with reckless abandon.

 

[SnowyGamester]

That memory unit for donkey kong was actually additional RAM if I'm not mistaken, not something for save files...saves were stored on the carts though for various games some data had to go on memory cards that plugged into the controllers (probably a file size restriction on the carts or something), but that is beside the point. Soon all your saves will be saved in the cloud so you won't need a hard drive or a memory card, just an internet connection, though that'll be optional for a while so people don't shit bricks about needing an always-on internet connection for their consoles. Cloud gaming 4tw

 

[Twilight_guy]

Memory cards are easy to lose and are an additional cost. They serve the same function as internal storage (since old systems did not have hard drives) and people prefer them (not you, but other people). It's just the way the market is.

Also, the Wii does use SD cards to store data on. Interesting that.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

It's hard to explain.

Memory cards kick ass for when you wanna bring your game and your 100% save to a party for an all-night tournament with, say, Tekken Tag Tournament.

Then you wake up the following morning with a beer bottle in your hand on your couch and find out your little brother found your card and flushed it down the toilet.

 

[Ninjat_126]

I like the idea of making saves transferable onto a USB stick or similar.

Possibly for PS3, they could be tagged with your PSN so you can't distribute them over the internet.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Isn't there something to do with Trophies/Achievements that basically says you're not allowed to use someone else's gamesave?

 

[Sovvolf]

It started with the first XBOX, which had a built in hard drive which also brought about quick saving and checkpoints into console gaming I remember it was one of the appeals of the XBOX that me and my brother would rave on about.

I remember the XBOX never running out of memory on me. I played hundreds of games on that one console and it still didn't run out of memory. However the big draw back was that, if the Box died, all your game data is pretty much gone. Also, you couldn't transport your data from place to place easily... Mostly having to take the really, really big console everywhere.

However they fixed that with current harddrives for the box where you can transport it with ease. Also, you can get a memory unit for the older ones, which I have.

As for the fade out of memory cards, well because they're pretty obsolete. Outside of their portability, they don't hold much data, easily broken and they smell funny.