Nintendo's Wii Storage Solution — SD Cards 79
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.
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!)
Why wasn't this solution available two years ago? (Score:0, Interesting)
I am completely baffled as to how an idea this obvious wasn't implemented at launch or with a firmware update near launch.
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:
- Nintendo of America Inc. today announced it has come up with a resolution for the dearth of storage on its Nintendo Wii gaming console -- a proprietary, 2GB SD card.
Sorry, this is not big enough
- According to Computerworld's resident Wii gaming expert, editor Ken Gagne, a 2GB card will hold about 60 games.
Fire him - what kind of games are we talking about?
- Last month, Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo U.S. operations, piqued gamers' interest by saying that his company's answer to the storage issue would be "better than" a hard drive, but he offered no details.
Okay....
The Wii is still fun but for serious gaming, PC, PS3 and the 360 trump Wii in more than one ways.
Nintendo: If it has to be proprietary, please make it 4-8GB. Please don't charge a ridiculous price because it's proprietary. Please don't cry when someone breaks open the proprietary protocols. I get the plumber but please bring out some games that do not involve Mario and oh, why don't you go and improve that's sports package you gave with the console? I'd actually pay for a full-fledged tennis game.
Re:blah (Score:3, Interesting)
Is SDHC really a hardware thing? I've had plenty of devices that have enabled it with a firmware update.
Re:SD slot speed is pathetic (Score:1, Interesting)
or they run the encryption engine at times when it's not needed.
We have a winner. If you scan through some of the notes from the reverse engineering of the wii over on wiibrew.org, particularly http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Content.bin_file_structure
, you'll see that they encrypt even the ICON of hte save files. Not encode, cryographically, RSA256, ENCRYPT the ICON.
Wii SD security is fail.