Wii's Internal Memory

[CantGetAWii]

With over 200 games currently available on the Virtual Console service and the impending arrival of WiiWare, one thing seems to be concerning a vast number of Wii owners (if the comments on VC:R are anything to go by) and that’s internal memory storage.

The Wii comes equipped with just 512MB of internal storage for things like game saves, Virtual Console titles and other downloadable content. Unsurprisingly, this is proving to be far too small an amount of memory,especially for dedicated VC fans that have downloaded countless retro games using the service.

As it stands there are two solutions to this irksome problem; the first is to copy your games to an SD card. This idea presents two issues: once the game has been copied over you can’t actually play it from the SD card. Secondly, the process of copying the files over is time consuming for some of the bigger titles (N64 ones in particular).
Will Nintendo permit the use of USB drives in the future?

Will Nintendo permit the use of USB drives in the future?

The second solution is to delete the game entirely and download it again when you next feel like playing it (any game you buy is permanently available for you to download again whenever you wish, but obviously you can only download it to the Wii on which it was originally purchased). Needless to say, this isn’t exactly ideal either.

Hardcore Wii fans have long been wishing for some form of firmware update that permits VC games to be played from SD cards, but given the protracted copying time when moving files to and from the storage medium it seems unlikely that the transfer speed will be fast enough for gaming. This is of course mere conjecture and we would be pleased to be proven wrong; the ability to both store and play your games on a 4GB SD card would be an excellent solution to tackling this troublesome issue. SD cards are coming down in price all the time and it would be perfectly possible to have several cards containing all your VC and WiiWare purchases, if need be.
Flash pen drives are another option, should USB freedom be granted

Since the release of the Wii many tech-savvy fans have pointed out that the two USB ports present on the console could open up a whole world of opportunities; one recent firmware update granted the ability to use USB keyboards on the machine, for example. Surely it would be a simple thing for Nintendo to allow Wii owners to hook up external hard drives for storage?

The idea is elegant in principle but we can foresee problems here, too. Nintendo is a company that is traditionally reticent about allowing third party hardware to be used on its consoles and the concept of plugging in any old hard drive would probably give Nintendo’s investors a coronary; why allow this when there’s money to be made? It’s far more likely that Nintendo will release its own dedicated storage drive (no doubt with a suitably daft name like “Super Mega Store”) and charge way above the odds for it while blocking the opportunity for Wii owners to use their own USB hard drives.

Whatever avenue Ninty decide to take one thing is clear: action has to be taken soon. When WiiWare arrives storage space will be at a premium and it’s hardly fair to expect owners to laboriously delete and re-download games when they start to run low of internal memory.

With rival companies like Microsoft and Sony boosting the hard drive capacity of their consoles, it’s high time that Nintendo looked at doing the same. It will have to if the company wishes to remain a key player in the sphere of downloadable content.

Source

 

[The L.S]

Super mega store indeed. ^_^

I believe something will come out in conjunction with Wiiware. I could be being too optimistic though... I just can't see Nintendo continue to be mentally retarded about this much longer.

 

[sremick]

One of the big reasons I've avoided Virtual Console. Plus I don't really feel like spending all that extra $$$. I bought a Wii, I want new games that will take advantage of it. Not to disrespect those who use VC... that's cool. They're just setting themselves up to be bitten by this sooner though.

 

[mcfz]

Personally, I have downloaed a few VC titles. I play them now and again.

Like sremick said, I want to play NEW TITLES. I played all the old ones before

Still kinda cool to have them there JUST IN CASE, but this is only for a very select few titles.

 

[vashivihan]

MASTER OF OBVIOUS

(TALKING TO THE GUY WHO WROTE THE ARTICLE)

 

[Marioman]

I bought a fricking SD card a while back...I can't get it to work...

 

[cannon]

Flog it off on ebay and buy another one.

 

[vashivihan]

Flog it off on ebay and buy another one.

i would keep it. maybe, just maybe, they are gonna update the wii so it can support sd cards to store vc games and u can play them.

 

[cannon]

Yeah but he said he couldn't get it to work, Maybe its the type of SD so why not make the money back and try another.

 

[vashivihan]

Yeah but he said he couldn't get it to work, Maybe its the type of SD so why not make the money back and try another.

ohhhh i must have missed it.

 

[Hylian]

My friend King stated it very nicely!I'm a retro gamer and i just wanna have at least 20 VC games simultaneously ready for playing!!! This memory shortage is another one of Ninty's faults that's really difficult to solve,now. WE DEMAND FULL EXTERNAL HDD COMPATIBILITY, NOT EVEN ONE MODEL EXCLUDED, WITH HIGH SPEED MODE FOR INSTANT PLAY!!!

 

[LuckyArmpt]

SD cards are cheap. Bought a 2 gig card 2 weeks ago on ebay for 97 cents.
Works perfect. All my VC games are backed up on this. If I run out of internal, just delete the ones I aint gonna play and copy the ones of the card to internal.
PITA yes, but until Ninny comes up with a system update, thats about your only alternative.

Lucky...

 

[sagema]

If Nintendo allowed SD cards for VC people would hack their Wii. Of coarse the other fact is people have been downloading Emulators and ROMS of NES and SNES games 6-8 years before the Wii ever launched.

I backed up all my NES and SNES games on my hard drive over 4 years ago, then later moved them to a single CD. Backing up copies of something you own is legal. However now that VC exists my computer copies are collecting dust. I prefer to play them on the Wii, along with new games I never played like Sonic 3. I'm pretty sure this is the same for most people that use VC. Some will steal if they enable SD cards, but more people like me will buy the games since the price is very low and the reward is very high.

Overall it's more gain than loss, Nintendo needs to acknowledge EMUs, ROMs have existed far longer than VC with online gameplay like ZBattle. If they want to compete against that they need to enable SD cards and later online gameplay. If not XBL and Sony's Home will pass them by in 2-3 years.

 

[sremick]

If Nintendo allowed SD cards for VC people would hack their Wii.

They already allow the backing-up of VC games to the SD card. How is simply allowing the games to be run from the SD card any bigger of a risk? The cat is already out of the bag there, and Nintendo doesn't seem to mind. So that can't be the reason.

Besides, people are already hacking their Wii, and making the SD card actually useful in the ways I've described before isn't going to increase this any.

Overall it's more gain than loss, Nintendo needs to acknowledge EMUs, ROMs have existed far longer than VC with online gameplay like ZBattle. If they want to compete against that they need to enable SD cards and later online gameplay.

I'm having a hard time understanding how allowing the use of SD cards as seamless memory upgrades (vs. just a backup mechanism) has anything to do with ROMs and piracy. Especially given the fact that Nintendo already allows one to backup and restore VC games to/from SD cards. Please explain?

 

[ShawVAuto]

The difference between being able to play from the SD card vs. backing up from it is as simple as this. Imagine a saved game on a memory card, sure it's a saved game but you can not play the game itself from the card. Basically you are saving an image of the game via SD card. What they are saying is that what if there was a channel that showed each game (in its entirety) you have on the SD card and allowed it to be played directly from it vs. having to be "restored" to the Wii's memory to be played.

About the Wii's internal memory, there is a video on You Tube about a company called Semi Conductor taking apart a Wii. They discovered that it in fact has a chip with 4GB of flash memory on top of the 512MB that we all know and hate. A simple update may unlock the 4GB of memory when the DS Demo channel comes out, who knows? Also, you guys can't REALLY think Nintendo (the original king of home consoles) would not forsee this problem and have something ready for it?