Nintendo "Working On" extra storage for the Wii

[FooFan]

Laurent Fischer, a main marketing sort over at Nintendo Europe, has told GamesIndustry.biz that Nintendo are looking at ways to solve the Wii's storage problem.

"We're working on a solution," said Fischer. "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."

However, it seems that this solution won't involve any sort of external storage.

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

You sure, Laurent? Sure you don't want to tell us?

"...this area is fully handled by the development team in Japan. It's very linked to the overall strategy; that's something they're working on."

An announcement at E3 is surely a definite now??

Source

[burnout2006]

Seems very likely Could be good news

[nutter]

Ah finally, thats good news

[Pvt. Michael J. Caboose]

However, it seems that this solution won't involve any sort of external storage

This part kind bothers me.. if it's not external might it be some sort of compression internally? That could make loading times longer

[skyman747]

I wonder if it would be possible for them to release some sort of "VC CD" where you basically stick it into your wii then it copies your VC games from the wii to the CD, keeping the wii lock on them. Then you could keep a good amount of Games on the CD, meaning lots more space on the wii, but that would probably make it too easy for hackers to get the games.

[Alphaman]

I reckon they'll have some kinda server, where you can store certain software (such as VC games, saved games, hopefully game patches) or files online.

[Pvt. Michael J. Caboose]

That would entail hardware modification (and a hefty maintenance charge no doubt) to change the DVD drive into a CD/DVD writer instead of a reader... and I bet the hackers would find a way of getting it to copy VC games/etc somehow

Originally Posted by Alphaman

I reckon they'll have some kinda server, where you can store certain software (such as VC games, saved games, hopefully game patches) or files online.

That sounds like a good idea

[biddenden_sue]

Wouldn't an online server still result in slow loading times or lag while playing a normal VC game?

What about a firmware update to allow you to actually load and run games from the SD card? Considering we can use SD cards with a capacity of up to (is it 2 gig or 4?), surely this could be a simple answer without needing any hardware peripherals?

But I'm certainly listening now. I have deleted quite a lot of VC games and channels from my Wii now, especially since making room for the Nintendo Channel. It would be nice to see them all back again.

[Venerable(ish)Bede]

"...this area is fully handled by the development team in Japan. It's very linked to the overall strategy; that's something they're working on."

Maybe it's just me, but more often than not the Nintendo overall strategy in the past has tended to lean towards releasing different versions of the machines. I view these non-committal statements with a large dollop of cynicism.

If there is an update to write games from the SD card, great.

[sean.aaron]

I would think a firmware update to allow direct play from SD. The slowness we see in doing copies is because write speed on flash is pretty slow; reading from it to the Wii memory (RAM, not flash) should be good enough to play games -- after all that's what you're doing when you launch a normal WiiWare title or VC game.