Gaming Hacks

Access Your Console’s Memory Card Offline

Memory card hacking for Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sega consoles.

Some of the most common console memory card hacking deals with PlayStation 1 and 2 cards ( [Hack #98] ). They’re not the only fish in the sea, though. The GameCube, Xbox, Dreamcast, N64, and other consoles with swappable memory devices all have their own different solutions that require different pieces of hardware. The very basics are pretty similar, though. Let’s cut through the confusion and explain where to begin.

GameCube Memory Card

The GameCube is a relatively quiet community for save game hacking, apart from its excellent Action Replay scene ( [Hack #75] ). Fortunately, there are two major options.

Extracting saved games

The first is the USB Memory Card adapter from EMS (http://www.hkems.com/product/gc/gc%20usb.htm). This 64-MB save device is similar to its PS2 equivalent, though, unlike the PS2 version, you don’t need an original memory card to use it. Connect it to your GameCube, turn on the console, and access the Memory Card screen, then connect the USB connector to your PC. Because the USB cable provides power, you can do this without connecting to the GameCube at all. You’ll have the same options without being tethered to your GC.

However, in order to access the saves and make sure they’ve copied across correctly, connect to both PC and GC at once. Here’s how:

1. Install the latest version of the GameCube Memory Adapter program for Windows from the HK EMS site (