Nintendo announces Wii storage solution: SD cards

[wraggster]

Yeah, the solution seemed pretty obvious to us, and now it looks like Nintendo's willing to admit it. Nintendo will be solving its little Wii Shop game storage overflow problem by opening up the SD card slot for storing and playing games from (with DRM galore, we're sure). The update will hit in the Spring of next year, and don't forget that 2GB maximum when stocking up on the little buggers. It's not exactly as exciting as a new DS, but we're really glad Nintendo's going to do the right thing here, instead of building yet another peripheral to clutter our lives with.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/02/nintendo-announces-wii-storage-solution-sd-cards/

[brunobelo]

Yeah, we can use some rare standard SD cards on Wii. It's hard to find but there are 4gb SD that aren't SDHC...

[DarkJesus]

It's been revealed that you can't actually play games off the SD, all you can do is download directly to it.

[ICE]

It's been revealed that you can't actually play games off the SD, all you can do is download directly to it.

Source?

[mcdougall57]

Source?

You can't play wiiware games directly off the sd card, you have to install it to the console first before playing. But for homebrew you can.

[exkillerxe]

That's currently. This is the solution to that current problem...

[ICE]

That's currently. This is the solution to that current problem...

Thats what I was thinking until that person said different.. If we wont be able to play off SD cards the nothing will have changed.

[brasssmunky]

what this "solution" is basically fixing the fatal flaw of SD cards in wii.
meaning
you can now download DIRECTLY TO, and PLAY FROM SD cards, basically making them just as viable as the onboard memory
which is nice, but not the greatest...

[kevenz]

brasssmunky: I hate your sig :P It took me 2 minutes to click all these damn buttons.

[Keitaro Urashima]

All right. Wii is in business. Thanks, Nintendo.

[Nintendo Maniac 64]

brasssmunky: I hate your sig :P It took me 2 minutes to click all these damn buttons.

Click one, then Tab -> Enter
repeat 9000+ times and you've pwnd his sig :D
(just make sure you don't highlight a web link after the last spoiler tag and hit enter and end up loading another page)

[aster0id]

Yeah, we can use some rare standard SD cards on Wii. It's hard to find but there are 4gb SD that aren't SDHC...
Yeah, but they don't work. I've tried one.

Non SDHC 4GB cards are a non-standard spec and not all devices accept them. My pocket PC does, but my camera doesn't for example.

Unfortunately the Wii doesn't either.

[ften]

Yeah, but they don't work. I've tried one.

Non SDHC 4GB cards are a non-standard spec and not all devices accept them. My pocket PC does, but my camera doesn't for example.

Unfortunately the Wii doesn't either.

Actually some do, I've done some indepth testing with a non SDHC 4GB card and it works fine if formatted correctly.
Here is a spreadsheet on the formatting;
http://fathertom.net/wii/4gbsd.xls
I posted a thread on GBATemp on it;
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=99545

-FTen

[goshogun1]

Great news Nintendo! :thumbup:
Yesterday I had to take away like 5 games to make room for Ys 1&2 (which was totally worth it). No more swapping out titles!

[brunobelo]

Yeah, but they don't work. I've tried one.

Non SDHC 4GB cards are a non-standard spec and not all devices accept them. My pocket PC does, but my camera doesn't for example.

Unfortunately the Wii doesn't either.

Damn! But, isn't Wii like ngage, wich can read some MMC and can't read most of them? Have you tried more than 1 manufacter?

Stupid Nintendo, SDHC would be great on Wii...

[panmusic]

Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news but I don't think that this is the case.Nintendo stated numerous times in their last conferance that they will enable direct saving to SD cards from the Wii Shop Channel.I don't think that direct loading is the case.If I must speculate I imagine a new SD channel which uses approx. 300 blocks from where you load in realtime any game saved in the SD card.
:(

[Grey Acumen]

Panmusic has the best spectrum of reasonable expectations out of this. Having an SD channel would allow it to keep a whitelist of all the games you've bought through Wii shop, and only allow those games to play on it.

Alternately, the SD channel might be set up to reserve the max amount of space that it would need for a game, and then it just copies whatever game you select from the SD card over to the wii whenever you want to play it. then scrubs that space when you pick a new game.
This would basically change nothing about what we currently have to do to play games that are on our SD card, but it would just do all the actions in the background.


Cynically speaking though, Nintendo could very easily have meant that they've only opened the SD card to save directly to it, but you still have to transfer files around manually in order to play them from the Wii. Which really wouldn't address the issue at all, but I could see a company trying to make it out as if that's gong to work as a solution.



I think my idea is the laziest way to do it while still fully addressing the problem; people will be able to access games from the SD card without copying them over first, but in actuality they'll still be playing from the Wii. It will have the negative effect of taking a shitload of time to play any game directly from the SD card, since it has to copy the whole game over first.
Personally, I hope they go with something like Panmusic's idea. It's still realistic, still allows for a defense against unauthorized roms, but actually lets the game run straight off of the SD card like what we have been asking for.

[kurtless]

I think they should make it so when a sd card is inserted, more Wii channel boxes would pop up depending on the blocks on the sd card. and when you would remove it, it would change back into its regular 512 MB harddrive. Just a thought, and a good one!