Topic: Reggie: Storage Issues a "Mainstream Problem"

[Nick DiMola]

An interview with Stephen Totilo reveals that Reggie Fils-Aime sees the Wii’s limited storage as a problem for more than just the "geeks and otaku."
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=16460

 MTV's Multiplayer blog had a chance to speak with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime about the problems caused by the limited storage capacity of the Wii, experienced by some gamers. Laurent Fischer of Nintendo of Europe made an unbecoming remark recently that only "geeks and otaku" are suffering this problem, minimizing the impact of the problem to a certain group.    

According to Reggie Fils-Aime, this is quite the opposite of what Nintendo HQ really feels. The Wii user base "loves the virtual console" and "is enjoying WiiWare content" and as a result are running out of storage space. As Nintendo continues to roll out new channels such as the Mario Kart Channel, this storage space becomes more limited, making it "tougher and tougher" to "satisfy all of these consumers who are loving … the product … available on a download basis."    

Reggie claims that "[they're] working on a range of solutions" but "have nothing to announce now." Though Reggie also said that it "is becoming much more of a mainstream problem" so there is a "sense of urgency to solve it."

[Dasmos]

Reggie is wrong. Fischer is right. Storage issues is a geek and otaku problem only.

[Morari]

A wide range of solutions? How about just opening up the SD cards? Geeze!

[Ian Sane]

Yeah like I'm going to believe something Reggie says.  If it isn't an official announcement it doesn't mean anything.

[NWR_Lindy]

Reggie is wrong. Fischer is right. Storage issues is a geek and otaku problem only.

Reggie makes a very good point regarding the Mario Kart channel.  That's pretty much the only way they're going to achieve some nice Xbox Live-style online functionality, and if they're going to do that for future games then space will become an issue whether or not you're a casual grandma or hardcore extremist.  As for geeks and otaku, they're the ones most affected by the Wii's pitifully small storage capacity, but they're also the ones giving Nintendo the most money.  To not appease them is just bad business.

What I don't understand is that NOA's own execs aren't even on the same page:

Dunaway: We don't have any storage solutions to announce at this E3. I
know what we do in my household, which is to focus on the new game,
because we're always kind of excited, "OK, what's going on WiiWare
this week?" So we delete the old games that we're not using, knowing
that they're always going to be there if we want to go back. It seems
to be kind of a trade for a lot of gamers, that they want the newest,
the freshest and they'll play that for a while.

Fils-Aime: We have said publicly that we're looking hard at the
storage situation, that we're working on a range of solutions. We have
nothing to announce now. But certainly it's an issue we are aware of
and we're working to find a solution and we will.

OK guys, so you're both clear that you have nothing to announce, but
Cammy pretty much says "suck it up and delete" while Reggie says
"we're working on a solution".  How hard is it to get those messages
synched up?

[Nick DiMola]

Deleting the **** I bought is not a solution, let me play the crap off of the SD Card. It is so easy its ridiculous. Games already take far too long to download and there is no way I'm going to redownload crap every time I want to play something.

I'm sure Nintendo did some sort of study proving that people download more stuff if they delete games when they don't want to play them anymore and they are running out of room.

[AV]

so basically Nintendo R&D are trying to find ways to make Money for this design flaw, and that is why its taking so long.

I'm guessing Nintendo is trying to find a way to allow the stuff they make, and lock out the stuff they don't have control over.

Like specially formated SD card, or only certain USB harddrives. The problem is how can you open it up for some, but not all. Also how can they stop people from trading VC and wiiware games .

could Nintendo just charge people to return their wiis to Nintendo and they just go in and replace the 512 internal memory with x amount memory they want. Like you pay $100 for 50 gig, or whatever and you pay for new internal flash memory and pay for shipping and labor?

[Ceric]

Yeah like I'm going to believe something Reggie says.  If it isn't an official announcement it doesn't mean anything.

Yep he lost his street cred.

I also can believe that even if there is a storage solution for the rest of Nintendo NOE will not offer it because there just mean like that.

Nintendo suffers like lots of other companies suffer.  To many of there chiefs are out of the loop.  I can bet good money that someone with a relatively minor role in comparison to Reggie in Japan knows more then he does through the corporate rumor mill.

[Ian Sane]

So we delete the old games that we're not using, knowing
that they're always going to be there if we want to go back.

Always going to be there if we want to go back?  Yeah right.  What about next gen?  What about 10 years from now?  What about 30 years from now?  What if Nintendo goes under at some point?  Really all Nintendo has to do is flip a switch one day and "NO DOWNLOADS FOR YOU".  Then what?  You paid for it but it's gone.

Maybe that concern IS a little too geeky or otaku but people own videogame cartridges that are over 20 years old and still play them.  Gaming is after all very disposable and even with re-releases some old games disappear because of licencing issues or companies going under.  For a lot of games owning old copies is the only option aside from illegal roms.  So a download service always has that issue about it being finite.  Being able to back up what we paid for on a physical medium allows us to keep it forever if we want to so that 20 years from now we can still play them when the service is gone.

Now I can see why a company like Nintendo would want this setup.  This is the remote off switch; the ability for a company to break its own product at will and force you to buy a new one.  I understand why a company wants this but don't feed me BS.  These WON'T be around forever.  They'll probably be gone in five years.

[Pale]

I don't buy the "what about 30 years from now" argument Ian is selling, but anyone who discounts the sheer annoyance of moving games around is just blinded by craziness grown by rationalizing silly design choices.

I smell a video blog entry...

[Plugabugz]

Games take far too long to download because someone - either Nintendo or your ISP, i think the latter because it's dangerously common - is throttling bandwidth because of massive over-subscription.

But i'm glad that someone at Nintendo has noticed. Common sense reaches the top. What next? Nintendo Europe really do have major unresolved issues? Nintendo Australia isn't really a figment of my imagination?

[Ceric]

Games take far too long to download because someone - either Nintendo or your ISP, i think the latter because it's dangerously common - is throttling bandwidth because of massive over-subscription.

But i'm glad that someone at Nintendo has noticed. Common sense reaches the top. What next? Nintendo Europe really do have major unresolved issues? Nintendo Australia isn't really a figment of my imagination?

Not just your imagination.  Nintendo of Australia is a Nintendo experiment in future virtual reality technology that went horribly wrong and now there is a Universal Figment of the Imagination(a UfI (U-Fee)) in existents.  It was deemed an abomination of a technology in the International Courts and deemed too advance by, well you know...  Thus all technology and plans related to this happening have been destroyed.  It took Nintendo 2 generations to rebuild and establish the replacements for the staff that had to be... Dealt With...  Luckily some of Nintendo's key assets where to deep into there own work to be a part of the project and were spared.  While others were exempted but later it was to hard to keep the secret.  Rumor has it that Nintendo still uses this technology in small specialized cases...

I don't buy the "what about 30 years from now" argument Ian is selling, but anyone who discounts the sheer annoyance of moving games around is just blinded by craziness grown by rationalizing silly design choices.

I smell a video blog entry...

You should also compare moving physical copies around to.

[Ian Sane]

I don't buy the "what about 30 years from now" argument Ian is selling

If you don't mind me asking, why not?

[Pale]

Well I guess I'm just assuming Nintendo will continue the service on to future consoles... and if they don't, I don't have enough faith that my Wii will continue running that long anyway... in which case I'll be really pissed at Nintendo for not continuing the service.

[NWR_Lindy]

Like somebody already mentioned, moving games from your Wii memory to the SD card is ridiculous as well.  When I moved Paper Mario to my SD Card it took 9 minutes.  It was so bad that I had to time it to see how long it actually takes.

[vudu]

Always going to be there if we want to go back?  Yeah right.  What about next gen?  What about 10 years from now?  What about 30 years from now?  What if Nintendo goes under at some point?  Really all Nintendo has to do is flip a switch one day and "NO DOWNLOADS FOR YOU".  Then what?  You paid for it but it's gone.

And what happens if in 30 years you accidentally drop your cartridge in the toilet and it no longer works and Nintendo refuses to fix it?  Just because you have a physical copy doesn't guarantee it will work past the warranty period.

[Nick DiMola]

Always going to be there if we want to go back?  Yeah right.  What about next gen?  What about 10 years from now?  What about 30 years from now?  What if Nintendo goes under at some point?  Really all Nintendo has to do is flip a switch one day and "NO DOWNLOADS FOR YOU".  Then what?  You paid for it but it's gone.

And what happens if in 30 years you accidentally drop your cartridge in the toilet and it no longer works and Nintendo refuses to fix it?  Just because you have a physical copy doesn't guarantee it will work past the warranty period.

Well at least that would be your own fault and not because someone decided for you that you can't have it anymore.

[vudu]

Fine.  What if you happened to have lived in New Orleans during the summer of 2005?  Point is, **** happens.  Get over it.

[Ian Sane]

Even if I accidentally ruin a physical cartridge I own or some disaster beyond my control ruins it, I can still hop on eBay and maybe find another one.  If I take good care of my stuff the odds of it getting wrecked somehow are still way less than a game that relies on a company to maintain a service.  Online options for PS2 games less than five years old have already been discontinued.

If you feel safe with it good for you but it isn't unreasonable for others to not trust it.  I can trust myself and I can take the gamble of dealing with unlikely disasters beyond my control but I never instinctively trust a corporation that wants to make money off of me.

[vudu]

Physical media is no guarantee that what you paid for will still work in the future.  VHS tapes die after a few dozen viewings.  CD/DVD rot kills good discs all the time.  Needles kill your vinyl collection every time you have the audacity to take advantage of what you own.

Cartridge batteries die all the time.  Discs are longer-lasting if you take good care of them, but good luck finding a PS2 (or a PS3 with backwards compatibility) that works in ten years time.  360 games will be all but worthless 12 months after the next Xbox system comes out because Microsoft won't be making any more and the ones out there will all have died from RROD.

I have a better chance of believing that Nintendo will still be offering the VC service (in some format) in 20 years time than my NES collection still working.

[- NintendoFan -]

"Cartridge batteries die all the time."

You can still play the game though, you just can't save.

[GoldenPhoenix]

I'm at the point I don't care about a storage solution, maybe the pain has wore me down to the point that I don't feel anything when I move my games back and forth.

[BeautifulShy]

When wiiware came out I had to delete all of my vc games off of my system to play Lost winds. The the Nintendo channel came  out and had to get rid of more vc games and a few channels. When I got Elebits I had to delete more. Currently the Channels I have are Mii, Internet,Nintendo,news,weather and no vc titles with no vc channels or wiiware channels. It is more than a annoyance at this point. I hope it gets fixed soon.

[NWR_Lindy]

"Cartridge batteries die all the time."

You can still play the game though, you just can't save.

And you can also open up the cartridge and replace the battery yourself.

[GoldenPhoenix]

"Cartridge batteries die all the time."

You can still play the game though, you just can't save.

And you can also open up the cartridge and replace the battery yourself.

Isn't that potentially damaging to the game? I have some games that have a dead batter and I'm scared to do anything