GCN How do (J) and (U) saves work?

[Dangerless]

Tell me if I'm wrong but let me understand how this works.

When you format the memory card depending what you save on it, it becomes region locked from that point.

Let's say you saved a Japanese game onto it, now if you play an American game and try to save it'll ask you to reformat the card and so on so forth.

If this is true is there a way to bypass this? Or is the above wrong and it doesn't matter? I was told a couple of different things so any help would be appreciated.

 

[DarkStriker]

Wait what? It simply creates a new savefile for that game on the other region. I dont see why it should format to make it work with that region. Like if you save with a J game, and then save with a U game you dont need to format or anything. They just make a new save file for that game that only works for that game in that region.

 

[Dangerless]

Wait what? It simply creates a new savefile for that game on the other region. I dont see why it should format to make it work with that region. Like if you save with a J game, and then save with a U game you dont need to format or anything. They just make a new save file for that game that only works for that game in that region.

It was in an FAQ somewhere but I copied the information. I think it came from gamefaqs.

QUOTETo set up the Memory Card (59, 251, and 1019), simply save a North
American or Japanese game's data onto it. Once a Japanese game save is
on the Memory Card, from that point on, only Japanese games may be
saved. The situation is the same with North American games. If you
remove all saves from the Memory Card in the Memory Card menu of the
system firmware, you can then save an American game again and
subsequently format that Memory Card to work with North American games.

WARNING: If you start up a North American game with Japanese data on the
Memory Card, then the GameCube system will ask you to reformat the
Memory Card. Be careful, especially when you start up Japanese games
with American memory cards, as it will ask you to reformat in Japanese.
If you don't know how to read Japanese, then you may miss the warning
and accidentally erase your files. Be careful.

 

[DarkStriker]

Looks like their region locked lol. Im not sure how they work, but i guess it either would be to encourage player to get games from their own region or something like that. Nintendo is know for being a retard about regions.

 

[Dangerless]

So basically, all I can do is simply have a memory card for (J) titles and one for (U) titles.

Means I'll have to buy another card just for this then, what a drag. Is there really nothing more I can do about it though?

 

[chaosdarkneo]

Maybe some third-party cards have a way to get around this?

Nintendo is a prick about region locking.

 

[DarkStriker]

So basically, all I can do is simply have a memory card for (J) titles and one for (U) titles.

Means I'll have to buy another card just for this then, what a drag. Is there really nothing more I can do about it though?

Third party memory cards might not have this issue though like chaos said. The only reasonable conclusion i can think of is because the save file is read different between J & U which i actually highly doubt.