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Nintendo's Wii Storage Solution — SD Cards
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Oct 02, 2008 05:35 PM
from the 2gb-ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody dept.
from the 2gb-ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody dept.
Lucas123 writes "After gamers complained for the better part of a year, Nintendo finally came out with a solution to the Wii's lack of storage capacity — a 2GB SD card from which users can execute games, adding to the console's measly 512MB of onboard storage. The card is expected out in the Spring. With the ability to download, the card should allow users to store up to 60 games."
This news came out of the same press conference that announced the Nintendo DSi we discussed earlier today. They made a number of other announcements as well, including Gamecube remakes for the Wii, updated to make use of the Wiimote, Club Nintendo coming to North America this year, and the Wii Speak Channel, an online voice chat utility.
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justme8800 writes "The DSi has a bigger screen, an SD card expansion, a 0.3 megapixel camera, is thinner (no GBA slot), and has improved audio. To be released in Japan on November 1st, everywhere else sometime in 2009."
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Lies, Damn Lies, and News Reports (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA is a lie. Iwata stated that the solution would be direct download to SD Card + a solution that will allow users to quickly copy from the SD Card to main memory. Early in the morning, the HOPE was that it was a translation issue and Iwata meant the Wii would cache the game in internal memory before running it.
Unfortunately, Reggie dashed those hopes [wired.com]. He repeated Iwata's solution in plain english. From the Wired article:
So don't believe everything you read. Half the stuff coming out of these press conferences is pure malarky. (e.g. 2 touch screens? False. 3 Megapixels? Disputed. New Pikmin? False. Street Fighter IV? False. Launch from SD? False.)
The good news is that the GameCube remakes are going to include Metroid Prime 1 & 2. So if you liked the control scheme in Metroid 3, you'll have a chance to go back and play the previous titles with those controls! (Whoo hoo!)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, I honestly thought it had two touch screens... Now I honestly don't see the point of it besides the cameras. Interesting. Especially since Nintendo is considering it a different platform than the DS.
blah (Score:3, Insightful)
No SDHC (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know what version of the wii you have, but all my SD cards work.
None of my SDHC cards work, which I believe was AxemRed's point.
Parent
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The article DID mention a 2G SD card. Regular non-SDHC cards generally top out at 2G.
It this a firmware update that we can use with our existing 2G SD card, or will we need to buy a "special" 2G card? I got a Kingston 150X 2G for under $11. I wanted the fastest card that I could find for my Wii.
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Third party 2Gb SD cards work fine already on the Wii. I have a San Disk Extreme II 2Gb card and it works fine - the only cards that don't work are SDHC cards (which Nintendo have never said they would support).
Regardless of how fast your SD card is the controller in the Wii is painfully slow. Hopefully what Nintendo means by "dramatically easier" copying is some firmware tweaks that improve the transfer rate to something half decent.
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try sticking a 4 gig sdhc card in there - wont work.
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SDHD
SDHC
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is SDHC really a hardware thing? I've had plenty of devices that have enabled it with a firmware update.
Re:blah (Score:5, Informative)
Is SDHC really a hardware thing? I've had plenty of devices that have enabled it with a firmware update.
SDHC is electrically compatible with SD and uses the same pinout, but they use different addressing modes; with vanilla SD, each address value represents a single word; with SDHC, it represents a block.
Depending on how the device has implemented I/O, it may or may not be possible to add SDHC support with a firmware or driver update.
Parent
SDHC? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a better solution would be to add SDHC support so we can use cards larger than 2GB.
Re:SDHC? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand. How is that a "better" solution? A 2GB card already holds nearly 20,000 blocks of memory. To put that into perspective, WiiWare games tend to range between 100-400 blocks. That's where the 60 games figure comes from. That's a lot of space, to be honest.
The real issue is the fact that you have to rearrange the Wii's memory every time you want to play a game. Think of it like having a PC with a 1.6GB hard drive. You can install a few games at a time, but if you want to play more than 2 or 3, you have to start uninstalling game in order to install others. If you have more than 2 or 3 you want to play at the moment, you will find yourself uninstalling/reinstalling A LOT. That's the situation of Wii owners today.
Parent
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To be fair, back in those days, the actual files were small; a 'normal' installation of a game from a CD to HD would take up fifty or sixty megabytes. The CD was used for FMV and Redbook audio.
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What I'm getting at is that an official external hard drive for the Wii won't change anything, perio
Save game protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Save game protection (Score:5, Informative)
You can back up most save games to an SD card, however there are some games you can't - SSBB and Mario Kart, and probably others too. I have no idea why these saves are "special", but they are. Maybe something to do with unlocking new content or something?
Nintendo doesn't allow games that have online play to be copied. The official stance is that it's because this would enable cheating; in games that have changing characters or tradeable items and equipment, it could facilitate the duplication of that equipment, but I have no idea how one would go about copying a game to cheat in SSBB's crippled online mode. Nonetheless, that's the official word.
Parent
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Three words: Not good enough (Score:2, Interesting)
I have all three consoles: 360, PS3 and the Wii and I find the PS3 and the 360 have matured well in the current generation of consoles and the Wii frankly has been found lacking.
Don't get me wrong - the Wii is an awesome social/party attraction but the lack of space, the hard to remember Wii code to add friends, minimal online aspect and not as many games (PS3 is snickering as I type this) have left me a little disappointed. (Only because it was so bloody freaking hard to get a Wii).
From the article:
- Ninte
SD slot speed is pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anybody else noticed a ludicrously slow transfer speed when transferring files to and from an SD card? I have a SanDisk 2GB card -- not exactly a no-name brand -- and copying even a small Virtual Console game to the card takes minutes. If a block is roughly equal to 128k (that's an estimate given that a 2GB card holds roughly 20,000 blocks), I calculated the transfer rate to be about twice the speed of a 1.44MB floppy drive. Nearly 100 times slower than the theoretical maximum transfer rate of an SD card.
Maybe they're trying to keep that retro experience going by giving you mid-1980's transfer speeds too.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a SanDisk
Well there's your problem. Overpriced and stupidly slow cards in general. Get a refund. Say it stopped working in your camera.
Re:"Proprietary" (Score:5, Informative)
1. I had no trouble getting a Wii without a bundle. Neither did anyone I know. In fact, it seems that those who fell for the bundle deal were in the minority. FINDING a Wii in the first place was the greater challenge.
2. The article means SD Cards in general. No proprietary card is needed.
3. The article is wrong anyway. No expansion solution was announced. All that was announced was the ability to download directly to SD Cards + an "easy" way of copying games to main memory. In effect, nothing has changed.
Parent
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However, one thing about the other systems is that they're also designed around being a media center (such as they are), waiting to store and play MP3s, movies, etc, etc. The Wii isn't. Without all that, 2GB isn't THAT bad. True, still somewhat small, and the rather slow access time of SD cards is more than a bit painful (or at least the rather slow access time of the Wii's SD card reader), but I consider it a somewhat decent patch solution until, say, they get an external HD option or Wii2 or whatnot.
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