Nintendo addressing Wii storage problems with "sense of urgency"

[Shrygue]

via Games Industry


Nintendo has said that it is urgently seeking a solution to the limited storage space on the Wii.

The company has been criticised for not addressing the lack of space for downloadable content such as WiiWare titles, Virtual Console purchases and individual game channels.

"We have said publicly that we're looking hard at the storage situation, that we’re working on a range of solutions. We have nothing to announce now. But certainly it's an issue we are aware of and we’re working to find a solution and we will," said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, to MTV.

"From an Americas-centric perspective, here is the reality we see. We have a consumer base who loves virtual console. We have a userbase who really is enjoying WiiWare content. So for us really our challenge really is how do we satisfy all these consumers who are loving all of the product we make available on a download basis?”

"In our view this is becoming much more of a mainstream problem, which is why we have a sense of urgency to solve it," he said.

The company had offended dedicated Nintendo gamers last month when European marketing director Laurent Fischer joked that only "geeks and otaku" needed extra storage for the home console.

[wiggy fuzz]

i swear, i'd hold Laurent Fischer for ransom until nintendo or a third party company releases a harddrive...

and obviously a high def mega wii for myself

[dahun]

i hope its an update that lets me use a usb flash drive devices

[____anders____]

yea enabling usb mass storage devices driver would be the best solution

[NeroMaverick]

another solution, which would be more seamless than some kind of external usb storage medium would be to allow playing VC and WiiWare games off the SD card... If the games are encrypted to only your system anyways, there shouldn't be a problem.

I think the SD card is the way to go, its inexpensive, and would be a sinch for Nintendo to implement into another firmware update, plus it would make less things to carry alongside your Wii, since it just sits inside your Wiis sd card slot.

[agenericperson]

Definitely the SD slot. I bought the system because I knew it had an SD slot which should have made the 0.5 gig internal storage a non-issue. If Nintendo sold a HDD or opened up the USB but not the SD, that would be like giving me and most Wii owners the finger. Not that I would mind USB. But that's a whole nother expense. I already have SD cards. I thought that's what it used. I mean it has an SD slot...

[davidw89]

Iam guessing probably BOTH the SD card as well as the USB for external device, like a cheap nintendo flash drive (hopefully like 4gb) but it will need to allow nintendo wii to load virtual games (such as wiiware) off the external storage..

[DPyro]

Nintendo are very far behind the curb on this one. They could easily have patched in support for SD cards or external usb devices, but instead they refuse to do anything about it.