Topic: Updates will render it useless?

[szotaku_sensei]

I can't find an answer so I'm asking will Nintendo's updates on the Wii U eventually take up the entire 8gb of the basic model rendering it useless at some point? I want a white one and I am fine with using an external harddrive with it but I imagine updates to the console's firmware etc would have to always remain on the console itself so could it run out of memory for them or specific apps like Netflix or can they be place on an external drive as well?


Thanks.

[ejamer]

Even with continued updates, the firmware should never take up the full 8 gigs.


If you don't mind using an external drive for games and other applications then you should never have to worry about running out of space.  The basic model won't be rendered useless.

[Louieturkey]

Some of the updates replace data already on the system. So a 2 GB update may only add about 100MBs of data total.  And this is just hypothetical but that is how updates work.

[BranDonk Kong]

8GB would be an obscene amount of storage space for a console OS. Ain't gonna happen - the Wii never used 512MB for the OS.

[Pixelated Pixies]

Theoretically it's possible I guess. There was a SKU of the 360 Arcade back in 2008 (I think it had around 256 mb) which required you to purchase additional storage cards in order to facilitate an OS update. As others have said though, it's not very likely.

[szotaku_sensei]

Thanks for all the info, just wanted to check as I hear about big updates and such. 

[broodwars]

Some of the updates replace data already on the system. So a 2 GB update may only add about 100MBs of data total.  And this is just hypothetical but that is how updates work.

That's how I see it as well, given that I see this on the Vita w/ its massive patches. Unless the update is adding some new functionality that would require extra storage space, each update should just overwrite the one before it for a negligible overall impact on your Wii U's storage capacity.

[Ian Sane]

Couldn't you make this complaint about a PC.  I get regular updates to Windows and I'm not afraid of it filling up my hard drive.

Nintendo knows about the 8 gig limit so they would be pretty damn stupid to clog it up with updates.  It isn't like some situation where you just have a small hard drive and the OS company doesn't take that into account.  Nintendo would surely know that taking up the entire internal memory of the basic Wii U would be an incredibly stupid thing to do.  Hell, Nintendo couldn't even assume they had 8 gigs to work with because they don't know how much space the user would have already used for other things.

[smallsharkbigbite]

I would think they would make the original O/S hold more space than is necessary so if the O/S did become bigger, it did not effect the user in anyway.  Someone who has already filled up their basic and has to delete things to upgrade would not be happy. 


I also find it ironic that the Wii U is flash memory, but Nintendo recommends you not use flash memory.  Instead they want you you to use an external hard drive for the Wii U because flash memory is less stable.