Nintendo: "We're Working On" A Wii Storage Solution

[Shrygue]

via Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/5017088/nintendo-were-working-on-a-wii-storage-solution)


The Wii just isn't big enough for all the stuff it offers. That's not conjecture, that's fact. So what are Nintendo doing about? Well, when Nintendo's Laurent Fischer isn't pissing you all off by calling you names, he's promising that - snide comments aside - Nintendo know there's something wrong, and are working on it.


We definitely detect that they [gamers] are serious and we know there is an issue in this, so it's something that we're working on.

Great! So we're getting an external storage solution, then?

Uhh...no.


Definitely there's no plan to issue hardware, an external hard drive, but we know that we have an issue in that area. It's very obvious and we're perfectly aware of it, but there's nothing we can say beyond this.

How terribly cryptic. And terribly unhelpful.

[kennyk]

That's bullshit. Basically, it sounds as if they may increase the size of new wiis produced, but leave us current owners hanging.

[Harshboy]

That's bullshit. Basically, it sounds as if they may increase the size of new wiis produced, but leave us current owners hanging.

Early adopters are always the ones that get screwed (unless you are one of those modding people, then it pays to be an early adopter -- More Mods!)

[vicious1988]

Option 1: Buy a new wii with increased space
Option 2: Send in your 1st gen Wii with all your homebrew channels so we can remove them, force the update, and send it back stating it has been modded and therefore will not be given extra space
Option 3: Do nothing

[mcdougall57]

does this even matter if you need the extra space for VC games? i mean you can exploit your Wii, install the homebrew channel then just use an emulator and an SD card for extra storage

[stefh]

I guess they just do a firmware update where it is possible to run channels from SD card. 2GB should fix the job to get all empty channels covered.

[____anders____]

i don't give a shit now that you've screwed us by disabling our homebrew.

[Kenzya]

Nintendo didn't disable homebrew......

[____anders____]

i know but i meant the twilight hack.

[firedragon_jing]

Option 1: Buy a new wii with increased space
Option 2: Send in your 1st gen Wii with all your homebrew channels so we can remove them, force the update, and send it back stating it has been modded and therefore will not be given extra space
Option 3: Do nothing
Sounds about right.

First they block us from installing the homebrew channel or running the Twilight Hack, next they'll try and block unregistered channels...

luckily the homebrew community is already finding more ways to break through.

[iSynic]

He says there's no plan to issue new hardware. That doesn't mean they won't open mass storage.

I won't believe it until I see it. But that's the only way his two conflicting statements make sense.

[firedragon_jing]

He says there's no plan to issue new hardware. That doesn't mean they won't open mass storage.

I won't believe it until I see it. But that's the only way his two conflicting statements make sense.I was thinking this too, so either they'll open up the SD card, or allow USB flash-sticks or USB HDDs to be used.

[urherenow]

Send in your 1st gen Wii with all your homebrew channels so we can remove them, force the update, and send it back stating it has been modded and therefore will not be given extra space



uhh... You do know the Wii can format its memory leaving no trace of the homebrew, don't you? Sure it ;)would be there still but they won't have time to use special software to look for that for every damn Wii that gets sent to them.

[Hevyduty]

I was thinking this too, so either they'll open up the SD card, or allow USB flash-sticks or USB HDDs to be used.

Exactly. The last thing I want is Nintendo selling an official storage drive. That would merely force us to spend way too much money for the storage space (i.e., like the Wii-branded SD cards or XBox 360 hard drives).

I'm guessing the hold up is the fear that letting us run VC and WiiWare games directly from the SD slot or USB could allow us to pirate games rather easily.

It probably won't happen as quickly as we'd like, but Nintendo will come up with a solution we can all live with. After all, they want to sell us lots of VC and WiiWare games and the limited internal memory conflicts with that.

[gamesquest1]

yeah probably wait till they have all the hombrew under control and let all the programmers use up all there tricks before putting it into firmware so homebrewers cant use it....at least till it gats hacked


hmmm i wonder if they are planning a universal emulator for games and then that just runs the roms lol instead of installing the emulator they use with every downloaded game

[agenericperson]

I still say external HDD. I will be shocked otherwise. I expect their announcement at E3...

Though I wouldn't be surprised if we see a new line of Wii's. The Wii SP. They come in different colors and have a larger flash drive. They are also harder to mod and exploit.

But I really hope I won't have to buy anything. I do have SD cards. Open the slot up!

[heathen_gray]

I'm not sure Nintendo will go for an external HDD, at least not yet, because VC titles should need to take up so much space.

With each VC title comes the emulator to play it on. So a 50kb NES game swells to 5mb. It's a ridiculous solution, and why they don't just let you download the Emulator separately is beyond me.

They could simply let us download the roms and emulator, without having to release a HDD.

WiiWare is a bit of a concern, and I can't help but think they haven't been optimised for size. Toki Tori is the same size roughly as Lost Winds, despite being a GBA port with slightly improved graphics and much better sound. It really shocked me because I didn't expect it to weigh in at more than 100 blocks.

[trugamer]

Perhaps the emulators they use don't work perfectly with all roms? so for different roms they use different emulators. Just a thought.

[stefh]

probably E3 news

[grossaffe]

Perhaps the emulators they use don't work perfectly with all roms? so for different roms they use different emulators. Just a thought.

along those lines, they probably have different controls, especially for the n64 emulator.

[heathen_gray]

Perhaps the emulators they use don't work perfectly with all roms? so for different roms they use different emulators. Just a thought.

It would seem silly to have a separate emulator per game. Per console makes sense, but there isn't a reason why they couldn't bundle them all together and have a VC Channel, rather than a channel per game.

And if there are issues with the games themselves, I wonder why they haven't just made a branch of one of the many open-source emulators for their games. They wouldn't be allowed to sell the emulators (and nor should they), but charge per rom sold.

Home-brewers have been at the VC game for decades, and Nintendo really need to catch up.

[urherenow]

You guys are jusy sooo funny. Just make a VC channel that just uses ROMs? When you can download the ROM for every game in existance in less than 3 hours?

Keep dreaming...

[heathen_gray]

You guys are jusy sooo funny. Just make a VC channel that just uses ROMs? When you can download the ROM for every game in existance in less than 3 hours?

Keep dreaming...

True, you could do that, but I've got no problem paying for the games. Paying for the VC titles as they are makes as much (or as little) sense as paying for a stripped down version containing only the rom.

[gamesquest1]

True, you could do that, but I've got no problem paying for the games. Paying for the VC titles as they are makes as much (or as little) sense as paying for a stripped down version containing only the rom.

Right well saying why dont they all share the emulator is stupid to some people aparently,

Well thats all you are really doing with a few tweaks per game, the fact people can put there own games into the VC games proves they havnt magically recreated all the games available.

Its just a emulator running diffrent settings, excuse everybody who already knows this, when you but a VC game you pay for a emulator and a rom.
Very simple, so why instead of downloading 5 n64 games say 150 blocks each, 50 of which is a emulator why not provide one 50 blocks download and 5 100 block games, im not saying 'ohhh nintendo let everybody just run roms'
By sharing an emulator but having compatability settings per game they could easily have the 5 x 150 = 750 down to 5 x 100 + 50 wich is 550 plus a simple config file taking 3 blocks each maximum, all the totals would add up for short term fix,

Feel Free to start saying how stupid it is i dont care i presume it would be easy enougth for them to do.
and BTW you pay them for whatever they want you to pay them for, aslong as they have permission of the original console creators they can charge for an emulator just normaly emulators are made without permission so the programmer isnt allowed to make a profit off it