Topic: Nintendo's Storage Solution

[Spak-Spang]

I have been trying to figure out how Nintendo's new storage solution will work. 

We now know you can save directly to the SD Card, but no mention of playing from the SD Card.  Instead, Nintendo stated it will be easy to transfer from SD Card to Wii.  (Read: Faster)

Well, this could mean one of two solutions.

1)Nintendo has just upgraded its SD Card firmware, and we will have the same issues as before it will just be easier and quicker than we had to deal with.  Not really a solution.

2)The second possibilities comes from an idea Activision is using...or is it Activision got the idea from Nintendo with a heads up.

What is a portion of the Nintendo Wii SD Card say 1,000 blocks is reserved for fast swap channels from the SD Card.  This will allow the appearance of playing games from your SD Card, but not really.  You will open into the SD Card Channel menus pick a game, that will be quickly uploaded to the Wii for play...and when you end the game, it will be deleted off the Wii memory. 

Since there is a limit to the size of games available for Wii Ware, it is easy for Nintendo to reserve an usable amount of Wii memory for this option, and for all intents and purposes we will be able to play games from our SD Cards, without having to deal with possible lag issues of playing games on our SD Cards.

[raptorspike]

Can they seriously pull their thumbs out, and release a patch that allows for USB HDD use.

[Pale]

This is the main reason I'm anxious about the US conference... because i want to understand what the hell they mean by all this.

[Plugabugz]

They should just do the memory card option AND usb HDD use.

My friend has a 1TB external hard drive and i'm pretty sure in 7 days its nearly 20% full. People will fill it. I don't know what's on it!

[Spinnzilla]

Isn't 2 gigs the biggest the wii can read?  if so I hope they expand on that too, so I'll just have to buy an 8 gig card and not have to worry about space for a while.

[vudu]

What is a portion of the Nintendo Wii SD Card say 1,000 blocks is reserved for fast swap channels from the SD Card.  This will allow the appearance of playing games from your SD Card, but not really.  You will open into the SD Card Channel menus pick a game, that will be quickly uploaded to the Wii for play...and when you end the game, it will be deleted off the Wii memory.

As long as they can limit the transfer time I would be fine with this solution.  However, if it still takes 30 seconds to transfer a NES game (and god only knows how long to transfer Cocoto Fishing) it's not an acceptable solution.

[Spak-Spang]

I think that is the point of the firmware update.  If they update it to firmware which can handle reading and writing information must faster it makes sense.

And since Activision is already talking about fast uploading of songs, perhaps they already know something...or it will get even better. 

I personally think that if they can load the maximum size Wii Ware game into that memory in 30 seconds or less then it would be a perfectly viable solution.

[Kairon]

Nintendo stated it will be easy to transfer from SD Card to Wii.  (Read: Faster)

Careful. Hope is blinding. This IS Nintendo we're talking about. Their idea of "Core" gamer is Animal Crossing... (Which IS a core Nintendo Fan game, in my opinion, just not a "Core" game)

What is a portion of the Nintendo Wii SD Card say 1,000 blocks is reserved for fast swap channels from the SD Card.  This will allow the appearance of playing games from your SD Card, but not really.  You will open into the SD Card Channel menus pick a game, that will be quickly uploaded to the Wii for play...and when you end the game, it will be deleted off the Wii memory. 

Since there is a limit to the size of games available for Wii Ware, it is easy for Nintendo to reserve an usable amount of Wii memory for this option, and for all intents and purposes we will be able to play games from our SD Cards, without having to deal with possible lag issues of playing games on our SD Cards.

This is the solution I anticipate, and hope for. It also suits Occam's razor: It's MUCH simpler for Nintendo to do this sort of thing, in my opinion, than to do any sort of advanced, costly, additional-hardware-solution thing.

[Spak-Spang]

Kairon:  Your post confuses me.  You state not to get your hopes up about the ease of transfers to the SD card meaning faster transfers...which to me is the only thing it could mean, as it already is pretty easy.

But then you quote my solution as the one you hope for (which is actually the one I hope for as well) as the best solution.

I just don't know why Nintendo has to wait till 2009 to roll that firmware upgrade out.  They need it for the holiday season.

[NWR_Lindy]

They need it now.  I did some fridge-cleaning to accomodate Bomberman Blast and felt like stabbing myself in the eye.  Copy, delete, copy, delete, copy, delete, copy, delete...it's maddening.  Also the fact that there's no progress bar to show you where you're at in the copying process is so lame.

[GoldenPhoenix]

They need it now.  I did some fridge-cleaning to accomodate Bomberman Blast and felt like stabbing myself in the eye.  Copy, delete, copy, delete, copy, delete, copy, delete...it's maddening.  Also the fact that there's no progress bar to show you where you're at in the copying process is so lame.

This is perhaps the biggest problem with "fridge cleaning" because true fridge cleaning should be quick and easy to move things back and forth. As it is now it is a sewer cleaning.

[UncleBob]

They need it now.  I did some fridge-cleaning to accomodate Bomberman Blast and felt like stabbing myself in the eye.  Copy, delete, copy, delete, copy, delete, copy, delete...it's maddening.  Also the fact that there's no progress bar to show you where you're at in the copying process is so lame.

Not to mention that there should be a "move" option instead of Copy, delete...

[Kairon]

Kairon:  Your post confuses me.  You state not to get your hopes up about the ease of transfers to the SD card meaning faster transfers...which to me is the only thing it could mean, as it already is pretty easy.

Oh sorry. I don't mean to say not to get your hopes up. I just meant to say that you shouldn't see too much in that Nintendo statement. "Easy" can be defined many ways, not just in the sense of "faster," and by now we should know that Nintendo defines things in a vastly different manner than we'd traditionally expect. Confirmation bias is what I'm warning against here, seeing this as evidence of what we already know we want (speed).

Still... that doesn't mean we can't hope... I like the idea of a dedicated virtual memory space very much, which has ALL OF A SUDDEN gained support even though I've mentioned it ages ago in related discussions T_T

[BranDonk Kong]

2GB is the current max the Wii can read *right now*, but a future software upgrade could easily change that limitation, provided Nintendo's SD spec in the Wii is SD 2.0...if it's not, then this still sucks.

[Toruresu]

2GB is a lot for me. Then again, I've only downloaded 2 VC titles and 1 WiiWare game. I believe if I ever fill the 2GB SD card I have, I'll just swap it with another.

[KDR_11k]

Careful. Hope is blinding. This IS Nintendo we're talking about. Their idea of "Core" gamer is Animal Crossing... (Which IS a core Nintendo Fan game, in my opinion, just not a "Core" game)

That's just a communication error, core does indeed refer to the userbase they've been serving before (which people have been decrying as kiddie), not forum whiners.

[Kairon]

Well, at the very least two different definitions of an admittedly vague and inflammatory word.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well guys I downloaded about 40 VC games  and about 10 WiiWare games and I still have 10,300 blocks left on my SD card (2GB card) so don't expect to have issues with a SD card being "only" 2GB since it will hold a lot.

Also downloading directly to the SD card will be awesome because the only time consuming thing about backing up games to a SD card is copying from the Wii internal memory to the SD card however copying from the SD card to the Wii memory is pretty fast. All they really need to do is enhance the menus to make the process more friendlier.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Source with some interesting info and the general sales boasting

[shammack]

To make it so that software stored on SD memory card can be played on Wii console by going through much simpler procedures.

To me, that sounds like you can't play them directly off the SD card, but they may be doing something like the Guitar Hero method.  Good to at least see something that suggests there's more to it than just be able to download directly onto the card.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well if you read it carefully it can be only be played off the Wii internal memory for probably more than one reason but the biggest reason for them is if it could be played off the SD card it will be a security breach so in order to compensate they will make the moving more streamlined and less annoying which is fine by me.

[ATimson]

To make it so that software stored on SD memory card can be played on Wii console by going through much simpler procedures.

To me, that sounds like you can't play them directly off the SD card, but they may be doing something like the Guitar Hero method.

Without knowing what the Guitar Hero method is...

We will also make it so that you will need to go through just one process in order to transfer Virtual Console or WiiWare software stored on an SD card to the Wii console and then be able to play it.

That sounds to me like they're planning on just-in-time copying; the channel may be stored on the SD card, but choosing it from the Wii menu will copy it memory and start it without fussing around with the Memory stuff in the settings. In other words, Spak-Spang's second solution suggested above.

[NWR_Lindy]

Well if you read it carefully it can be only be played off the Wii internal memory for probably more than one reason but the biggest reason for them is if it could be played off the SD card it will be a security breach so in order to compensate they will make the moving more streamlined and less annoying which is fine by me.

This is all they need to do as far as I'm concerned.  I never had a problem with the Wii's small onboard memory, just the incredibly annoying process of moving stuff back-and-forth from the Wii to the SD Card.

[BranDonk Kong]

Yeah copying to the SD card is absolutely ridiculous, even if you have a "fast" SD card. This isn't too bad of a solution, as 2GB is certainly a lot better than 512MB, especially since a good chunk of that space is always unusable anyway.

[DAaaMan64]

The Wii's main screen should just automatically load channel buttons of the SD card, and when you select to play them, it loads them onto the wii system real quick. Giving it the appearance that they are all on the Wii already.