Topic: Wii Storage Solution Put Forth

[Nick DiMola]

Nintendo's Japanese Media Conference reveals their solution to the oft-mentioned storage issues on the Wii.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=16810

 Nintendo President Satoru Iwata announced during Nintendo's Japanese Media Conference that they have found a solution to the Wii's storage issues and will be rolling out a firmware update to solve it soon.    

Players will be able to download Virtual Console and WiiWare games directly to their SD Card. Iwata said that this data would then be easy to transfer to the Wii's own memory afterwards.    

According to Iwata, the new feature will be available next spring. With Nintendo holding a press event tomorrow and NWR in attendance, look forward to further details as they break.    

CORRECTION: There is no clear indication at this time that games can be played directly from the SD card.

[decoyman]

Ahahaha XD

Wait, why'd it take them so long to figure this out again?? I should just be glad it's finally being addressed, I suppose.

[AV]

I guess it takes time to get good firmware to help make the SD cards read/write faster, and makes it somehow copy protected , but still MONTHS from now.

Whatevever as long as I don't have to buy "nintendo brand" SD cards I'll be cool.

[ShyGuy]

Finally. Does the Wii take larger than 2gb SD cards?

[DAaaMan64]

Finally. Does the Wii take larger than 2gb SD cards?

It doesn't right now. No. That is because there is a physical difference between 2+ GB SD cards. So I think the receiving hard ware has to be different. But I don't know for sure.

[nickmitch]

Next fucking Spring??  Seriously!?  This is the best they could come up with?  This better not even be the half of it.

[Enner]

Well, slow and steady I guess.

[NWR_Lindy]

I wonder if they'll start to phase in SDHC support in the Wii hardware at some point...

[DAaaMan64]

SD High Capacity is exactly what I meant, ShyGuy. Silks just answered your question.

[Shift Key]

So the solution to the "clean out your fridge" paradigm is to "use a bar fridge as well"?

Good thing I don't care about this VC/Wiiware stuff right now, otherwise I'd be pissed.

[Bayou]

I beleive the WII SD card memory problems lay with the fact that SD cards in order to maximise space do not have registries built into the chips themselves, unlike say RAM chips for a PC computer.
Thus the registries are built into the system instead so it is up to the system maker to increase the cost of the ports in order to be able to utilise increasing amounts of memory in SD cards.

thus the 2 solutions would be either to

A: introduce SD cards that have registries built into them (considering those crazily small Micro SD cards are aproaching 4GB, maximizing space for SD cards might not be sucha pertinent problem as it was during its initial inception)

or

B: come out with a USB SD card reader that has expanded the amount of registers for up to 64 GB 256 GB*crosses fingers*

Never the less on to the main topic this I think may be a neccessity as my hypothesis for the upcoming upgrade will be:

The SD channel

Which will require users to leave a signifigant amount of WII memory card space free, possibly the majority of the space if not all and have everything that was on the WII uploaded to SD.
This free space is of course a virtual memeory to download whatever game or program is selected in the SD channel and possibly to be used to help performace of say, the Web browser and WII ware games.

That is my hypothesis at any rate. 

[Kairon]

Yeah, I've had a similar guess as to the most likely storage solution Bayou. We're on the line of thinking here.

[KDR_11k]

So, um, it skips the step of saving it into the Wii memory? BFD, loading from the SD card is still slow as **** and the copying to it is done only once anyway.

[Bayou]

So, um, it skips the step of saving it into the Wii memory? BFD, loading from the SD card is still slow as **** and the copying to it is done only once anyway.

No it would still copy to the main WII SD memory,  the possible advantage would be having 2 SD memory sources for uploading and dowloading data, like streaming texture maps, geometry, audio for downloading or increasing the level of in game customizeability with an increase in the upload rate (which is usually slower for SD cards).

Say if N implemented solution B, you could possibly dedicate the old SD card slot for save game data only while having the USB card reader for dedicated to SD channel operations for better data traffic management.

The USB port could be a better source for data transmission though that depends on whether the Wii's USB is 2.0. I am not sure on that one.

[redgiemental]

I'm slightly underwhelmed by this "solution". I still only have the same paltry amount of space on the Wii itself and I still have to transfer the files onto my Wii memory to play them.

[Pale]

This doesn't sound like a solution at all to me.  It sounds like they are trying to trick us or something.

[UncleBob]

Over there is our Wii Memory Storage solution...

...Over here is the new Nintendo DSi.

What was over there again?

[NWR_insanolord]

There's got to be something more to this. I refuse to believe that a company that's that successful can be that stupid.

[UltimatePartyBear]

This would have actually been a reasonable stopgap solution if they had done it several months ago, but they took this long just to get this far with months left to go before it's released.  I know Nintendo's engineers aren't that stupid, so I can only blame management.

[Ian Sane]

This sounds remarkably similar to what we have now.  Can someone fill me in on what the difference exactly is?  I don't have enough VC games so that storage is an issue for me.  This sounds like Nintendo presenting the exact set-up they have now, calling it a new solution and hoping none of us notice.

Here's the solution: a f*cking hard drive.  The competition does it and it works.  Quit doing things stupid just because someone else thought of the right way to do something first.

[Pale]

Well this CAN be a solution if we are also able to play games off an SD card....

But, if that isn't the case, I'll be pissed.  And what it doesn't solve is the 40 meg limit on WiiWare, as if they let that get much bigger, then 2 gig SD cards will be a hassle.

[NWR_insanolord]

I don't understand why they'd let you download straight to the SD card if you can't play them off it, that would make no sense. Hopefully they'll clear things up later today.

[AV]

I don't understand why they'd let you download straight to the SD card if you can't play them off it, that would make no sense. Hopefully they'll clear things up later today.

uhh yes you can play them off the SD card. Thats the entire point. Save direct to SD, play off SD and that way you have 2 gig card to save and play your game and your Wii doesn't get full.

the only problem is speed of the SD cards and piracy for Nintendo which seems to be the reason why its coming next year not now.

This is temp solution I'm betting on Wii HD in 2010 with HD graphics and 20 gig internal flash. If DSi is any indication this doesn't seem to unlikely.

[Jonnyboy117]

uhh yes you can play them off the SD card. Thats the entire point. Save direct to SD, play off SD and that way you have 2 gig card to save and play your game and your Wii doesn't get full.

Source?  No one I've seen is reporting this.  And you certainly can't just assume it.

[Nick DiMola]

Yeah it seems those claims came from some shoddy translations of the Japanese live blog. Anyone who printed that (including us) has retracted the statement as it wasn't ever actually confirmed.