Topic: Official Virtual Console Mondays Thread

[Kairon]

Quote
Originally posted by: NeoThunder
Has anyone been able to fill up their Wii flash memory with VC games

...

I've bought 16 myself

I'll be there soon. I'm about to overflow into my 3rd channel screen, and this is BEFORE I buy all the games this weekend I plan to... by next Monday, I'll have bought my way into about 30 of my 48 channels filled...

Oh wait, you were talking about flash memory? Oh... I don't think I'm gonna get there before I run out of channel space.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[MarioAllStar]

Has anyone confirmed that you can actually run out of channel space? I mean, we have all assumed that the 4th page is the limit, but maybe it is just the default. Maybe the Wii adds another page when you fill up the last. If it does not already do that, it really should.

[31 Flavas]

If it is a hard limit, just delete (or move to a SD card) a VC game or two that you've already finished. Once you've bought a game you can redownload it as many times as you want.

[Artimus]

All I know is that they better introduce channel organizing PRONTO.

[The Traveller]

I dont think its neccessary to have channel organising really. I actually like having all the VC games out on the top level, and you can always organise it a bit by moving channels to where you want them to be. For instance I have all the 'Application' channels on the very top row and that will continue along all the pages. I am then using the other rows for VC games.

[The Omen]

I kind of wish you could shrink the menu to fit on screen.  Minor gripe though

[Pale]

Quote
Originally posted by: The Traveller
I dont think its neccessary to have channel organising really. I actually like having all the VC games out on the top level, and you can always organise it a bit by moving channels to where you want them to be. For instance I have all the 'Application' channels on the very top row and that will continue along all the pages. I am then using the other rows for VC games.

I would agree with this if there wasn't a hard channel limit.  I just crossed the halfway point on my channels, and I will get extremely frustrated if Nintendo hasn't released a solution by the time I fill the whole thing up.

I don't want to spend 5 minutes jumping through hoops to 'load' a VC game if it happens to be one of the ones I had to drop to my SD card.

Edit:  You can definitely run out of channel space.  That thing doesn't scroll forever, and if it was a dynamic list of some sort, it wouldn't scroll at all.

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: MarioAllStar
Has anyone confirmed that you can actually run out of channel space? I mean, we have all assumed that the 4th page is the limit, but maybe it is just the default. Maybe the Wii adds another page when you fill up the last. If it does not already do that, it really should.

There's 48 Channels...anyone have that many yet?

There's the Disc Channel, the Everybody Votes Channel, the Forecast Channel, the Internet Channel, the Mii Channel, the News Channel, the Photo Channel, and the Wii Shop Channel.  That's eight.  Plus one for each Virtual Console game.  If anyone has 40 VC games right now, they'd know what happens if they try to get one more without deleting any games first.

I don't think there are 40 games worth owning on the VC yet, but that's another story.  Even if there are a dozen more Channels yet to come, I don't think I'd need all of the remaining 28 spaces at any one time, though I'd still like VC game consolidation of some sort.
 

[couchmonkey]

I think Nintendo will release a solution for this...but much too late for its hardcore fans.

[Spak-Spang]

I am quickly running out of space.

Channels I have:
Disc
Mii
Forecast
Internet
Photo
Shopping
News
Super Mario Brothers
Super Mario World
Super Mario 64
Legend of Zelda
Legend of Zelda Link to the Past
Toe Jam and Earl
F-Zero
Gunstar Heroes
Kirby
Mario Kart 64
Street Fighter 2
Kid Icarus
Bomber man '93
Bonk's Adventure
Castlevania IV
Hockey

I also have Wario's Woods and Solomon's Key, but I have those stored on the SD Card.  

So I have at least 23 channels taken up...and I could have missed some of the virtual console games I own.  

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: Pale
I would agree with this if there wasn't a hard channel limit.  I just crossed the halfway point on my channels, and I will get extremely frustrated if Nintendo hasn't released a solution by the time I fill the whole thing up.

Oh bitch bitch bitch. You'll live if you have to move a game on or off an SD card. Take a chill pill.

Quote
I don't want to spend 5 minutes jumping through hoops to 'load' a VC game if it happens to be one of the ones I had to drop to my SD card.

If you're that dedicated to the VC (you buy more then 40 games) that'll be something you'll have to deal with. Besides which, you'll probably run out of internal memory, unless you're buying nothing but NES games, so you'll have to move stuff between memory and an SD card.

It's not like I oppose more channels or space or am claiming Nintendo can do no wrong here. It's just if you're that dedicated to VC games, then, you'll just have to keep your 40 most played games on the Wii and move the rest to SD storage. Or delete and redownload as necessary.

[Spak-Spang]

I do not want to have to redownload games...once you do that you lose your save data and such.  But the SD card is a viable and perfectly acceptable solution.  Sure you do have to shuffle.  But you have to do that anyway, when you organize your game library at home.  You put your NES games in the closet because you don't have room for your Wii games along with the Cube and Nintendo 64 games you have out in your room.

It is actually worse before the Wii because you would have to disconnect the earlier systems to play, and that leaves you doing more work just to play a game.  

So although the SD card system isn't the most effective memory management for VC games...it isn't horrible either.

[Pale]

I didn't know it was the users fault for being too 'bitchy' if something is designed with a glaring flaw.

My bad.

And on the internal memory front...

Hmm, I'm not sure if you realize this or not, but the SD card slot was billed as an "expansion slot" by Nintendo themselves.  Too bad it isn't an expansion of any kind.  It's just a back up system.  I could complain about how flawed the system is until I was blue in the face.  EVERYONE (including myself) said things like "It's ok that the Wii doesn't have a hard drive because we'll be able to put 2 gig SD cards in it, and those are pretty big."  Then Nintendo released a system where the SD slot doesn't function in that way, and now I'm just being "bitchy"?  Come on man.  I can't believe the rose colored glasses so many people look through because it is so close to launch.

Anyway, all of that said, I'm giving them a chance to fix it.  I've already drafted an incredibly frustrated editorial, but I won't finish it until I actually run into the problem myself.

[Nick DiMola]

Why can't the Wii just read channels off of an SD Card? It seems like Nintendo didn't think too hard about the whole channel limit and didn't include proper support for the SD Cards. Sometimes they do some stupid stuff that'll just never make sense to me.

[Artimus]

This is why organization is the answer. It's a simple solution that offers the best of both worlds!

[Pale]

Exactly.. there are tons of solutions here and that's why I'm not angry at Nintendo yet.

They can either increase the channel limit, or create ways to stack channels.  Either would work great.

They can then make it so the SD slot is actually an expansion slot, where all saves get pooled together.  They could also release a USB hard drive.


The fact of the matter is that the current system does suck and they need to do something about it.  Trying to say that it is just fine is pretty ignorant when the flaws are as apparent as they are.

[JonLeung]

Since the limitations about Channels seem to be software-related, there's always the possibility that they can be fixed or improved upon with updates.  After all, I thought the first batch of Wiis couldn't even copy saves back from the SD card until the first update was performed.  Reading VC games or saves off of the card doesn't sound too difficult...I wonder why they would wait on such a simple fix?  Don't tell me it's not physically possible, Nintendo!

[Spak-Spang]

I can think of a few possibilities why Nintendo chose to set up the way they did.

1)Since the games seem to contain the entire emulator or at least partial emulators in the downloads, perhaps it can run smoothly from the SD Card.

2)It has to do with the locks Nintendo put in place to ensure you can't run games you have bought for one system on another.  The fact that it must be on the Wii memory and not just the SD card memory means that hackers will find it harder to crack.

3)Some other reason I can't think of.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That being said, I am not happy with the situation, I would like Nintendo to fix it and make it easier to use the SD cards as viable additional storage memory, but I am not going to complain about...because to me it is a minor issue, that I believe will be resolved.

Personally I expect Nintendo to release a Firmware upgrade that will:

1)Treat at least Wii saves on the SD card as if they were on the system memory...and possibly also run Virtual Console games off SD Card.

2)Add more channels to the overall Wii.  Perhaps by creating a special SD Card channel, that will allow you to access your Virtual Console games and other stored channels from the SD Card.

3)All more Wii Address storage (200 instead of 100) and Mii storage (200)

4)Finally get the virtual console controller to play with Gamecube games.  

5)Shorten load times between channels and boot up.


We know Nintendo is working on bigger Firmware update, because they have stated they aren't 100% satisfied with load times and other elements of the system.   I believe they are trying to get everything running smooth with one final firmware upgrade that solves most of the big issues, and just using the smaller upgrades for the small issues.  

Nintendo is also probably waiting to get better infrastructure for their online service before releasing a huge upgrade that everyone will be downloading.

[Ceric]

I would really love to be able to do custom organization of the channels.  Especially if I could put my own picture/animation on it.

Now the number 1 thing I want right now is for game saves to be able to be on an SD Card instead of the System Memory.

[SixthAngel]

I don't know how much n64 games take up but I imagine if you download some of those your wii memory would probably fill up before you reach the channel limit.  

[Pale]

I agree Sixth, but the problem is those are two distinct bottlenecks to the system that Nintendo has to address.  Basically, they screwed up in two places...

1.  Very limited about of system-usable memory.
2.  Hard limit on the number of slots for channels.

It doesn't matter which one someone hits.  They will be frustrated either way.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Part of me wonders if Nintendo added these arbitrary limitations just so they could lift them later and look good for doing it.

[Ian Sane]

"I can't believe the rose colored glasses so many people look through because it is so close to launch."

I think it's because it's Nintendo.  If Sony or MS did the same thing they would get ripped apart on this board.  Having any sort of "cap" on a download system like the VC is ridiculous no matter what.  The only real limitation on digital content is memory space and that should be avoidable with the ability to swap SD cards.  If the iPod had a limit on the amount of songs you could have available and you had to redownload songs from iTunes if you ran out Apple would just get sh!t on.  Having a channel limit is silly and even though there is a way to deal with it as consumers we shouldn't have to deal with anything we're not happy with.  Can anyone name a logically good reason for the way Nintendo is doing things?  Sure you can tell us to deal with Nintendo's arbitrary restriction but is there an actual good reason why this should even be designed the way it is?  I see it as incredibly unnecessary.

[Smoke39]

One minor thing I'd like with channel organization is the ability to swap channels.  Right now, if you want two channels to change places, you have to move one to some extra, open place, move the second into the place the first had been occupying, then move the first from the extra space to the space the second had previously occupied.  How inneficient!

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: Pale

I didn't know it was the users fault for being too 'bitchy' if something is designed with a glaring flaw.

You are being bitchy. It's entirely pedantic whether the Wii has 40 channels or 400 since you're not going to have the internal memory for more then roughly 40 VC games anyway. And my god, you have to choose _*40*_ games to keep active. What a travesty...

Look i'd like to show off all my DVD, Video game, and CD boxes but I just don't have the space in my little university dorm room (I have close to 500). So I have to show off a few of them and keep the rest in storage. If you're that hard core of a Wii-ware and VC purchaser you're going to run out of channels and internal memory. The channels you aren't using will have to go into storage. Besides, it doesn't take 5 minutes or "jumping through hoops" to swap out unused channels/games. That's just you being dramatic.

Quote
I could complain about how flawed the system is until I was blue in the face.

You can and probably will. My guess, after this you'll probably move onto why the Wii should have a better name, better graphics, HiDef, or 5.1 and optical out, how it should cook you dinner and massage you feet. In short, it doesn't do a lot of things you want. But you know what, that's just too bad. It's unfortunate, but Nintendo can't please everyone. When has anyone?