This little baby was definitely a Spaceworld surprise, but the endless speculation since then has all pointed to one destiny for the tiny SD cards: rewritability. In fact, some comments from NOA reps Peter Main and Perrin Kaplan have hinted at that very outcome...and what a juicy outcome it is. Few N64 followers could forget the gigantic 64DD travesty. Massive delays, broken promises, and pipe dreams all resulted in a limited, unsuccessful Japan-only release. However, Nintendo's dream of living worlds and user-defined gaming may well be resurrected in these tiny chips of memory.

Developed by Panasonic (a subsidiary of Matsushita, Nintendo's new hardware bedfellow) for a wide range of uses in digital cameras and other devices, the SD (Secure Digital) card is actually already on the market. The Spaceworld information indicates that GameCube will utilize a 64 megabyte version of the card. That's as large as many N64 cartridges, and an incredible 128 times as large as the GameCube's Digicards. If you were to go check out Panasonic's SD website right now, you'd probably be shocked by the prices; as of this writing, a 64MB SD card from the manufacturer's website costs $179.95 US. Obviously, that's FAR too much if Nintendo ever wants to make the technology a widely accepted part of the GameCube market. It is highly likely that the prices for SD cards will come down sharply by the time Nintendo is ready to unleash rewritability upon its customers. We can't know what the cards will eventually cost the average GameCube fan, but Nintendo probably won't try to sell it for more than $100 US, and they may eat some of the cost in order to get it out in mass quantities at a price even much lower than that.

Last but not least is the SD Adaptor. Essentially a caddy, the adaptor looks like a Digicard with the middle cut out. The tiny SD card fits neatly into the adaptor, and the adaptor fits neatly into one of the GameCube's Digicard slots. We expect the adaptor to be included with the SD Card. If Nintendo sells them separately at all, the adaptor will almost assuredly retail for a very modest price, since it contain almost no electronics components itself.