Some Math on this Much Needed PS2 Option
Written: Nov 30 '00 (Updated Feb 20 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sony Quality. It can hold the data for approximately 27 different games
Cons: A bit too expensive, Costs more than 3rd party, One should come with the Console
The Bottom Line: This 8000KB memory card (8MB) is capable of holding data for about $1350 worth of games (27). Why skimp with someone else's memory?
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| Yarborough's Full Review: Sony 8MB Memory Card PS2 |
Please remember to pick one up when you buy that PS2 Console.
The Sony 8MB memory, or equivalent, is the first option that you will need to buy for your new Playstation2. It would have been great had they packed one in the box to help justify the $300 purchase, but they didn't. They didn't give you a memory card back in the days of yesteryear either, with the Playstation1. Without this $35 option, you can not save your progress on any PS2 game, making it a necessity.
The 8MB memory cards save the new PS2 games. It is the same size and shape as the Sony PS1 memory card but sports a black paint job to match the PS2. Don't throw away your old PS1 122KB, 15 block, memory cards yet, that is if you have some, because you will need them for saving your downward compatible PS1 games.
Let's try to justify the $35 cost. The old Sony 15 block memory holds 8KB per block, or 122KB of total data. It cost $15. This new Sony 8MB memory holds 8000KB which is 65.5 times the capacity of the old. If you had to purchase the new card at the same rate as the old, the new card would cost $983. Maybe that will make you feel better, but not much.
Currently I have 9 different games saved with 5370KB of free space remaining. The amount of storage needed per game has ranged from a low of 46KB to a high of 603KB. This is a good reason why you can not use the old 122KB memory cards for PS2 games. My average save so far, is 291KB per game. If I continue to add new games at this same rate, the card will hold 27 different games. That's about $1350 worth of games.
A cute feature, when viewing the memory card contents via the Browser, is that the game icons are nicely animated. Selecting one will give you the game name, file size, date and time. This animation is actually a feature of the PS2, not the memory. The amount of free space remaining, in KB, is also displayed.
Currently $5 dollars or so can be saved by purchasing an 8MB memory from other vendors. But many people prefer to stick with Sony for quality reasons, considering the value of their hard earned points. Me, I've always had a mixture of both and have not had a memory card fail yet.
Initially, these 8MB cards were almost as scarce as the consoles. With a little persistence, one could be found. This is no longer a problem, although stores seem to have more third party memory cards, like Mad Catz, than they do Sony cards. Third parties could have made a killing had they had them in place on "Launch Week".
I feel the price should be $25 because that's the going rate for 8MB of memory for Digital cameras or Palm PCs. Of course I bought one. In fact, I bought two. I suggest that you do the same. This way you can backup your most important games by copying them over to another card. Based on Sony's memory card history, I'll give this product a 5. I wonder how long it will take before we see 16MB cards.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Yarborough
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Member: Herb Yarborough
Location: Coventry, Rhode Island, USA
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 37 members
About Me:
Hey! Where did all the Fun go? :(
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