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Revolutionary: Wii can has hard drive?

nintendowiifanboy.com — In his latest column, Mike Sylvester discusses why the Wii has to eventually get a hard drive and why one hasn't been released yet.

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  • vinyltiger, on 04/24/2008, -26/+23Wii want a hard drive, Wii want a hard drive!
    • B1663r, on 04/24/2008, -13/+27Why would Nintendo add a hard drive??? All they have to do is release another console that is marginally better than this one, then release Mario+1, Zelda+1, Sports+1, Play+1, etc etc etc. and you guys will all buy it again.

      Why on earth would Nintendo mess with that equation?
      • steviebaby, on 04/24/2008, -6/+7Those people who have used up all the available console memory want a hard drive. In my opinion it was very short-sighted of Nintendo to have a relatively low level of capacity on the console itself. It will deter people buying/downloading games and other content if you have to be picky about what can be stored. And in the long run, this will have a detrimental effect on revenue.
        • DDBdestroyer, on 04/24/2008, -5/+18i dont think nintendo really give a damn... they are IN PROFIT for every single wii console they sell - so they can just bring out the next small step and everyone will buy it AGAIN... the formula has worked countless times so why not again?
        • jsully, on 04/24/2008, -2/+8What exactly are you doing with your Wii that a 4GB Micro SD card can't handle?
      • Spectre77, on 04/24/2008, -2/+8It's funny to see all the haters jumping onto the same bandwagons of inaccuracies and piss-poor logic over and over again:

        Wii-Haters: "It's for kids lol". "They just keep releasing the same 3 games lol and you idiots keep buying them lol".
        PS3-Haters: "Too bad they haven't released any games for it yet lol". "At least my controller rumbles lol".
        360-Haters: "RROD lol". "You have to pay to play online? lol".

        If you don't like a particular system for some hackneyed reason, don't read articles about them. Save yourself some time, nobody cares what you (or I) think.
  • robomixx, on 04/24/2008, -18/+86Since when is having a feature that's 6+ years old revolutionary?
    • latova, on 04/24/2008, -15/+41It's much older than that I'm afraid. PC gaming has always had hard drives.
      • estvir, on 04/24/2008, -7/+20But they're talking about consoles.
        • latova, on 04/24/2008, -13/+13Its not my fault consoles are behind the times.
        • joeyjojo402, on 04/24/2008, -2/+4We talkin' bout practice.
        • estvir, on 04/25/2008, -1/+1It's your fault for bringing a different platform into the discussion.

          Consoles will more or less ALWAYS be behind PCs.
      • Stradenko, on 04/24/2008, -4/+35PC Gaming has *not* always had hard drives.
      • krd1979, on 04/24/2008, -1/+20Tell that to my first computer, the Apple IIc... 5.25" floppy was it.
      • Dundasbro, on 04/24/2008, -3/+15You young people with your Xbox 360s and your compact disks and your pre-rendered graphics and your hard drives for pc gaming. Get off my lawn!
        • estvir, on 04/25/2008, -0/+2In my days we had to hike up a hill in snow, barefoot, to play videogames.

          Both ways.
      • pigfister, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1But kids that play games on the 360/ps3 are unable to read and updates are way tooooo complicated for them so they don't know about pc gaming!
        • nobelief, on 04/25/2008, -1/+1"kids?"

          how about people who don't prefer tinkering with computer parts like the "super duper 1337 pro nerd" that you are?
    • NecroSexy, on 04/24/2008, -2/+4Looking at the italicized text before the article begins: " [...] REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities"
    • paulofmandown, on 04/24/2008, -1/+11It's the name of a recurring feature article this guy writes for "nintendowiifanboy.com".
    • Cagnazzo82, on 04/24/2008, -4/+13It's too late for the Wii in my opinion... they totally missed the boat by not having a hard drive in time to allow for Smash Bros. to have downloadable content.
      • deltaandroid, on 04/24/2008, -3/+8what good is downloadable content when the online is already botched completely? If not completely, then far inferior to other online services, everyone know im talking live here.
        • DarKnight90, on 04/24/2008, -2/+2Download new characters, new stages, let users swap maps, etc.
          • championchap, on 04/25/2008, -0/+1He knows what you can use online for.
            Just complaining about friend codes pretty much.
    • gaijintendo, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3The codename for the Wii was "Revolution". I suspect it is in reference to that.
    • zongamin, on 04/24/2008, -6/+1Its the name of the column.
      Now ***** off.
  • Wiinii, on 04/24/2008, -35/+5I can't wait... til the 360 gets it's Wiimote.

    Sorry, but a hard drive does little to fix the bigger issues with the Wii.
    • ufee, on 04/24/2008, -15/+11I can't wait... til the 360 gets it's Recall.

      ***** Microsoft.
    • KingGoonie, on 04/24/2008, -8/+9I think having the best games fixes any smaller issues the wii may have.
    • AmazingAndrex, on 04/25/2008, -0/+1Bigger issues? From what I can see with WiiWare coming out, not having a hard drive IS the biggist issue, above even friend codes and voice chat.
  • lucidguru, on 04/24/2008, -31/+14The only good part about the Wii is the controller... the system's hardware sucks... the games are sub-par at best (SSBB, Mario Galaxy, and Mario Kart are nothing to write home about) and multiplayer on the system is so lame. Wii = Fad that is fading fast.
    • KingGoonie, on 04/24/2008, -14/+8AHAHAHAH it has better games then PS3! And almost as many great games as the 360... and I'm going by average reviews. So think again lucid.

      And wii is a fad thats fading fast? Hmm... what exactly is your definition of fading cause last I checked its still as successful as ever.... and just predicted to be even more so as the months and years go on.

      Nice try though.
      • OrdinaryPanda, on 04/24/2008, -7/+12I have the Wii and Xbox360, and I'd have to say that in the way of "great" games (AAA) Xbox 360 stomps the Wii. I can count on one hand the great games for Wii, and so far they are all made by Nintendo, so here we are again for another round of "here's my Nintendo machine to play my Nintendo games" I enjoy Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, etc, but this formula is starting to get stale. They better have something new beyond trying to balance on a board for kicks.
        • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -4/+12Rather than debate you about which is better, blah blah blah, just look at the reviews for games on each system and look at the genre of all the games with a 8/10 or better... you'll see what's happening really fast. The 360 has a lot of good FPS, some RPGs, and a few shooter/adventure types that don't fit into the FPS category.

          The Wii has a few genres of titles in that top tier group, but with only a couple exceptions they're all local multiplayer titles. The ones that aren't are all adventure/puzzler games to some degree or another.

          So, if you want to blow some stuff up, or play a couple of big tradition style RPGs get a 360. If you want to play games with your family/friends, or solve puzzles get a Wii. Neither one is BETTER, per se, than the other, nor are it's games better as a whole, they're just aimed squarely at different types of gamers, which is fine. There's room for both in this market, I think.

          BTW, saying you're getting old of the "Mario, Zelda, and Metroid formula" is a little one sided. I'm getting tired of the "Halo, Call of Duty formula". Also, I won't deny that the 360 has more "AAA" games available, but you have to consider that 1) it's been out a year longer. Comparing next years Wii AAA count to this years 360 is a little fairer, but I'll concede that doesn't help the gamer much.

          And 2) MS came out of the last generation with a TON of momentum. They went from, literally, no one to #2 in a huge industry in a few short years. They were on a big upswing. Nintendo on the other hand, had spent the last TWO generations on a slow slide. The SNES was the most popular gaming system by leaps at the time, and they continued to decline in terms of market share and popularity from there all the way to the Gamecube. Developers, and more importantly, publishers weren't sure if the Wii was going to be successful at all - they had to reverse a decade long trend of selling less and less hardware. Investing millions into a game on the Wii early enough to have released a big name game by now would have been a pretty big risk.

          Now that the Wii has shown itself to be successful, in terms of consoles sold, there's a lot less risk involved with a 3rd party dumping millions into the big titles. This will reflect in the AAA titles available for the system over the next couple years, I think.
      • Tahiri, on 04/24/2008, -3/+1According to reviews (metacritic/gamerankings) Wii does not have a better game library than PS3.
    • KowGawd, on 04/24/2008, -3/+11Which console sold the most units this quarter?
      do Wii know? I dunno, maybe Wii should look it up...
      http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/04/18/nintendo-take ...
      • Antwan718, on 04/24/2008, -9/+5Thats a ***** number and you know it, at Game stop we get only 3 wii consoles in every 2 weeks, Nintendo is doing that on purpose to spoof revenues, and make people think the system is a lot better than it really is.
        • apothekari, on 04/24/2008, -1/+4Yeah, Everybody knows that Nintendo is refusing to make systems!They are cutting production and borking supply lines because if you could find a wii then...wait whaaah?
          How the hell is not making enough to meet demand "spoofing" revenues! It reflects number of units sold not "makey- up -numberoes- in- fanboy - la- la- land" figures.
          Nintendo is genius at this "If we don't make it they will come", Field of Stoopid Dreams I guess.
      • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2ur doin it wrong
        If you want real proof, use real data:
        http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php (graph of total sales from launch of each console)
        http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php (graph of sales by date)
    • SketchaMPM, on 04/24/2008, -7/+8You killed your own argument when you said that Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Galaxy are "nothing to write home about". Way to underhand two critical darlings with huge sales. You ***** fail.
      • MattyLite, on 04/24/2008, -7/+3Just because they're the best games on the Wii doesn't mean they're great games. Mario Galaxy was ridiculously easy, and SSBB is repetitive with terrible online multiplayer.
        • NgrHader, on 04/24/2008, -4/+2I know I'll be dugg down, but when other consoles are releasing Gears of War 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Turismo 5, Halo Wars....how can a game like Super Smash Brothers be taken serious?
          • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2The game is awesome. It's just a different type of awesome. For instance, SSBB is fun, whereas all the games you listed...well...don't exist yet. You know, just a different kind of awesome.
        • SketchaMPM, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Mario Galaxy was stunning and best Mario game since Super Mario Bros. 3. Smash Bros. Brawl was nearly perfect with it's only flaw being a dumbed down online mode. It shocks me that you would downplay these two games.
    • BlueSkyfish, on 04/24/2008, -2/+6http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simplerat ...

      Mario Galaxy was ranked the second best game of all time. Having your own opinion is fine, but don't try to pass it off as popular opinion.
    • AmazingAndrex, on 04/25/2008, -0/+1/sarcasm?
  • legioss, on 04/24/2008, -13/+4better be at least 1 tb lol
  • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -4/+116I don't know what the fuss about a HDD for the Wii is... just enable the SD cards to be used for things the internal memory can be used for, or at least create an automatic swapping system so that the console will shuffle stuff to and from the card to internal memory transparently so it seems like you are running of the SD card.

    SD cards are cheap, you can get 4 gigs for under $20 and you'd be free to choose your capacity based on price, but HDDs have a certain price floor. It'll be at least a $100 peripheral since we'd have to buy a HDD, enclosure, and powersupply. Why would anyone want that?

    What Nintendo should do is release Wii Sports 2 (more sports, more in depth game play, more courses/fields/etc, online play, online leagues, etc etc) for $40 and include a "free" 4gb SD card, and release a system up that lets the card be used like it was internal memory. It would solve the problem, really, and in a cheap, attractive way for the consumer.

    I'm just so confused about what people want to put on a Wii that would need a HDD of more than 4gb? The WiiWare titles are limited to like 40mb. VC games are less than that. There's no video content to download to the Wii (and if there was I suppose it would have to be SD, and so would be fairly small). I never used more than 12gb on my 360 HDD and I downloaded tons of demos and marketplace games... the only reason it ever got that high was I didn't delete stuff that I was completely done with anyways.

    • Dgen_X, on 04/24/2008, -2/+15Rational thinking? You sir are a witch!

      A 500GB hard drive would make my e-Wii so much bigger!
      • apothekari, on 04/24/2008, -1/+2BURN HIM!!!
        HE BRINGS LOVE & UNDERSTANDING TO OUR FANBOY ***** OFF!!!!!!
        BURN HIM!!!
    • nutmac, on 04/24/2008, -2/+11I thought the largest memory card Wii supports is 2 GB? It should be updated to support SDHC at least.
      • pox05, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1i have a 4 gb sd card and it works fine
    • LightningTH, on 04/24/2008, -6/+3Due to my work reverse engineering the Gamecube for emulation, look up Gekko if you wish, the memory card interaction is actually quite slow. Yes, it would be possible to implement a swap with the setup, however, the speed impact would make it worse than the benefits you would gain from it. Do you remember how long the memory card saving took on the original Gamecube? Realize that the Nintendo 59 memory card was only 0.5MB in size, and most games only used a handful of blocks (1 block is 8k of data). That is aweful slow writing and interaction.
      • drlha, on 04/24/2008, -1/+9You're assuming that the Wii access speeds to SD cards is the same as the GC's access speeds to GC memory cards. That's a big assumption IMHO.
      • deltaandroid, on 04/24/2008, -1/+3I think sd card has higher write/read speed than a gamecube mem card.
        • apothekari, on 04/24/2008, -0/+5It has to...I have put 10 to 20 megabyte hires pix from my digital camera in the photo channel and it reads and manipulates them pretty much instantaneously.
    • popnwave, on 04/24/2008, -1/+5You're thinking too rational! I agree though, I'd be happy with 4GB+ SDHC support, less clutter, no need for extra power cables, et al.
    • Pippers, on 04/24/2008, -2/+8The Wii can only support 2GB cards, and the bandwidth is too slow. I'm not quite certain why you got dugg up, but it's not very informative. All you need to do is look around on any popular Wii message board and you will see endless amounts of complaints from people who have no room left. This is even before the announcement of the even larger Wiiware games that aren't even out yet.

      Games like Rock Band want a device for people to download to because the content is actually rather large. A single song typically weighs in over 20megs last I looked, and that includes no graphics, just the music and datafiles for each device.

      Until Nintendo can offer a hard drive, and not tiny, slow, memory cards, publishers will overlook the Wii when it comes to awesome extra content.
      • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -2/+121) 4gb is hardly tiny.
        2) 20mb for a song file is idiotic and they need to come up with a better way to store that data. At 4 minutes, even a 256kbps MP4 audio file is about 8mb, which means they need 12mb for what should be a 500kb text file describing the songs beats, etc.
        3) SD isn't inherently slow, although it could be implemented poorly.
        4) The 2gb limit COULD be lifted with software update, or maybe not.
        5) I'm getting dugg up because what I am saying makes sense to a rational person. There's no need to add a $100 HDD (and that's pretty much the price floor for an external HDD) when a $20 card will achieve the same results.
        6) The trouble doesn't seem to be storage not being offered - there is an SD card slot that will store at least 2gb if you want it to - it's access to that storage. It seems to be locked down for DRM type protection purposes.
      • Tahiri, on 04/24/2008, -2/+1No $20 SD Card will ever come close to the capacity of a normal harddrive.
        • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I think you are missing the point. A $20 SD card (4gb) isn't the same size as a "normal harddrive" but it does provide an adequate amount of storage space for the required purpose. Plus, dollar for dollar, it's likely that SD cards would match the size of any game console accessory hard drive. When you add the cost of the enclosure with IDE/SATA to USB adapter and power supply you're looking at a $100 peripheral even with the smallest/cheapest drive in there. So with a $100 price floor, you could buy FIVE 4gb cards (20gb) for the same price and come out even against the, likely, 20gb HDD being offered.
      • bigfinger, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Dugg for being older then a 12 year old and using the word "awesome"
    • rkthoadan, on 04/24/2008, -2/+3I predict that downloadable content for games is what will eat up the most space. DLC for Guitar Hero or Rock Band could take up a good chunk of space. I'm sure if they have the space available they would enable some sort of video content to download.
    • Cyber_Akuma, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3"just enable the SD cards to be used for things the internal memory can be used for"

      If Nintendo enabled the SD slot for games or added support for USB drives then they can't charge you $100 for a 20gig "Wiidrive"
      • Spectre77, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2I'd only pay $100 if they called it a HardWii
    • chesterjosiah, on 04/24/2008, -7/+4Yeah, and nobody will ever need more than 640kb of RAM on their PC.

      How can you say this, mrgreen4242? Seriously, this is the exact same stupid mistake Bill Gates made in 1981...
      • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1This is completely different. Gates was talking about a PLATFORM (the PC). I'm talking about a specific machine. There's a finite maximum amount of space any Wii user will ever need. The next Nintendo system might need twice that, but for this specific device there's a limit to rational storage needs.
      • willfe, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1*Sigh*. Silly troll. Let's bang out all the reasons why you're wrong.

        1) 2GB is much, much larger than 640kb.
        2) SD is not RAM.
        3) SD is hot-swappable and interchangeable at run-time. RAM is not.
        4) The Xbox, PS3, and Wii are identical in their inability to add additional RAM-style memory, either at run-time or via offline upgrade.
        5) SD is in the same memory class as hard disks as far as video game accessibility is concerned -- relatively fast random access, moderately fast reads, decent writes. SD slows down on writes a bit more than disks do. SD is as useful for streamed content and buffering as a disk is. Neither SD or a hard disk can ever perform as fast as internal system memory.

        The question I haven't seen answered by anyone is a simple one: which individual game requires (or could require) such a giant wad of contiguous storage? What is so hard about switching out a memory card to match the game being played?
    • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3While SDHC is clearly the best answer to this problem, if there was an issue with it, like the interface being too slow or the hardware is limited to 2gb max, the next best step is still a USB flash drive. Any HDD would have to be USB anyways but with flash drives running about the same price as SD media (about $5 per gig) I'd still much rather pay less and get a small drive (that doesn't have it's own enclosure and powersupply).

      The base price of an external HDD is high enough that unless you're putting a 300gb+ drive in there it'll be at least as expensive per GB as flash anyways... and even if you think 4gb isn't enough, what are you going to do with 300gb on a Wii?
    • Shrubber, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Well, pretty much the only argument that the author makes against providing HDD compatibility is that it would wear out. That doesn't matter if you're using a USB drive, which would be the only HDD option available to the Wii. Nintendo couldn't make a new version of the Wii, it would screw up their "one SKU" goal, and probably also screw up backwards compatibility with older Wii consoles. So what if a USB HDD will eventually wear out? If Nintendo just adds the compatibility feature to a firmware update, I could use any USB hard drive I have lying around. By the time those things wear out, hard drive capacity will have improved enough that I would probably already want to upgrade my drive anyway. So why isn't Nintendo doing this? Piracy. They aren't worried about downloadable games being pirated, those are securely tied to your console. But they think that preventing people from attaching their USB drives will stop people from loading up a 500 GB HDD with ripped Wii games and never buying a game again. But the fact is people are already torrenting ripped games and burning them to discs to play on their modchipped consoles. No matter what they do, people are going to pirate games and modchip their consoles. Nintendo isn't stopping them by keeping honest users from using their HDDs.
  • ultralights, on 04/24/2008, -11/+65WTF is all this we can has *****? WTF has happened to the english language? sure, it might be funny, once, maybe twice with a funny picture...
    • frepnog, on 04/24/2008, -12/+0it is an internet meme. take a pill, guy.
      • xenuxenuts, on 04/24/2008, -0/+7Let's leave the 12 year olds' memes to the 12 year olds though.
      • Archaic1, on 04/24/2008, -2/+1It is a pill, take a guy, internet meme.
      • tehHardcorez, on 04/24/2008, -2/+1i'm not your guy, buddy.
    • Cyber_Akuma, on 04/24/2008, -0/+12"WTF has happened to the english language?"

      The internet stole it's wallet, stole it's identity, slept with it's wife, killed it, raped it's corpse, then danced on it's grave.

      And thanks to rule 34 theres probably a video of it somewhere on youtube.
    • ATLien74, on 04/24/2008, -0/+11I understand it's a meme, but that doesn't change the fact that it's incredibly stupid and annoying.
    • zongamin, on 04/24/2008, -1/+7Maybe you shouldn't have started your rant about abuse of the English language with "WTF". ***** idiot.
    • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3WTF is with this acronym BS?!
  • hitman619, on 04/24/2008, -10/+17"Wii can HAS hard drive?" how about "Wii's can have a hard drive?"... I thought that's what those USB slots were for in the back of the unit - expansion baby!
    • TheObviousChild, on 04/24/2008, -5/+3I sure look forward to when Wii can has grammar check.
    • robmoff2, on 04/24/2008, -0/+5The title had bad grammar on purpose. Your comment , however, had bad grammar on accident. "Wii's" would be possessive, not plural. I think what you were getting at was: "Wiis can have a hard drive?"
      • jjustice, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I agree, but it could have been worse. In the last week on Digg, I've seen "something apostrophe S apostrophe" and then "Will Ferrell space S apostrophe." [facepalm]
    • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -1/+2If you don't understand, then you are missing out: http://icanhascheezburger.com/
      • TheObviousChild, on 04/25/2008, -0/+0Thank you for shedding some real non-condescending light on that. Pretty funny website too!
  • brandonhardee, on 04/24/2008, -6/+1Badass USB drives
  • foolishwolf, on 04/24/2008, -13/+15Can has? If I didn't have a Wii, I'd digg this ***** down out of pure principle. Type correctly folks.
    • PDubNYC, on 04/24/2008, -8/+3Google LOLcats or just go here
      http://icanhascheezburger.com/
      Then perhaps you will realize it was a joke. Not a good one, but an intentional joke nonetheless. THANK GOD you didn't digg it down, that would have been catastrophic
      • foolishwolf, on 04/24/2008, -4/+1HAHA I like your reply. Touche.
      • sremick, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1I got the "joke" (aka, worn-out meme) but it's still stupid. English > chatspeak.
  • Lasereth, on 04/24/2008, -19/+11Who cares about the Wii. I said since launch that the Wii was overrated and that the gimmick control scheme would wear off. Now it has and games like Mario Kart and Smash Brothers are playable only with Gamecube controllers if you want to be good at them. Yes I'm a Wii hater but only because it was overhyped into the atmosphere for no reason other than it being $250, hard to find, and with a gimmicky controller. Now bury me Nintendo sheep.
    • snypylo, on 04/24/2008, -2/+4HOLY *****; REACTION BASED GAMES DON'T USE GESTURE BASED CONTROL SYSTEMS!! WHAT A SCOOP!!!
    • bhiv, on 04/24/2008, -3/+5I think the control scheme is more than novel. My wife, sister, and mother all enjoy playing the Wii when I bring it over. Women make up nearly 70% of casual game players and that is exactly the type of game the control scheme works best for.
    • garvallagh, on 04/24/2008, -3/+2All hail the oracle
    • ATLien74, on 04/24/2008, -2/+5Worn off? You still can't hardly find a Wii in the store, and it's approaching 2 years old!
      • Lasereth, on 04/24/2008, -1/+2Because Nintendo is creating a false supply problem to increase demand.
        • chaosblade77, on 05/24/2008, -0/+0Only a company with false supply could possibly consistently sell 700k units per month compared to less than 100k units a month for the other two consoles.

          And of course, pissing off customers by not meeting demand is excellent business strategy.
  • Jbone1986, on 04/24/2008, -7/+2why does the Wii need a hard drive? No DLC is too big for a 2 GB SD card, to sum up mrgreen's 2 page essay
  • Kasot, on 04/24/2008, -13/+33Noticing how "can has" is starting to sound natural?
    • JanYpe, on 04/24/2008, -2/+29Only if by "natural" you mean amazingly irritating.
    • yohnstoppable, on 04/24/2008, -0/+9I don't find it natural. In fact, I buried this story because of it.
    • Cyber_Akuma, on 04/24/2008, -0/+8Dosen't sound natural to me at all.
    • Xondar, on 04/25/2008, -1/+1Yes, but I imagine a cat saying it. I guess it's fast becoming the cat-dialect of English in my mind.
  • o0joshua0o, on 04/24/2008, -1/+24All Nintendo has to do is release a system update that allows external USB hard drives to be used with the Wii. Problem solved.
    • DGRules, on 04/24/2008, -1/+0I'm sure the enhanced possibility of piracy will keep Nintendo somewhat reluctant until they've really figured out a method that they think will make it pirate-proof.
      • o0joshua0o, on 04/24/2008, -2/+5I imagine it being used like this... When you take the disc home and put it in the Wii, the system checks for a hard drive. If it doesn't detect one, it prompts you to hook one up. Once you hook up a hard drive, it "installs" to the hard drive, but only partially. What I mean is, the FMVs and audio files are decompressed to the hard drive, but the executables still remain on the disc. That way, huge audio and video files can be streamed off the hard drive during gameplay, but the integrity of the actual "game" isn't compromised. Sure, you'll have people who copy audio and video files to their PCs, and probably post them on the Internet, but those won't serve as a replacement for playing the game. Besides, the whole piracy issue is moot, since these games are all torrented on release day anyway.
      • SkippyDoorknob, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3The downloadable game are already pirate proof (well, casual copying at least).
        You can already copy a VC game to an SD card. But if you then take that SD card to another Wii and copy it over, it won't run. They're tied to the Wii that downloaded them. Stuff downloaded to a hard drive could just do the same thing.
    • Cyber_Akuma, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2They won't, why?

      Same reason a 20gig HDD for the Xbox360 costs $100 and a 120 gig HDD costs almost $200.

      Why give you the ability to use a 3rd party (and much cheaper) storage device for free when they can lock you into purchasing an overpriced drive designed to only work with the Wii and claim its to reduce piracy?
  • digitallysick, on 04/24/2008, -7/+1I see no reason for this, unless nintendo starts movie/game demo downloads
    • Cyber_Akuma, on 04/24/2008, -0/+3The hundreds if not thousands of Wii owners who have already run out of space see a reason for it, and the Wii isn't even two years old yet.

      I mean, comon, a $400 laptop I purchased half a year ago came with more RAM than the Wii has storage space.
      • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1A hard drive would be nice, but I don't get what the big deal is. If you have so many VC games that they don't all fit on your Wii, you obviously aren't playing every single one of them every day. Since you can re-download the games for free any time you want, just delete the ones you don't play as often to make room for ones you do play. Last I checked it only took about a minute to download a VC game.

        I understand, some people live in areas that can't get cable internet. Sure, those people have a right to complain, but I doubt most people browsing Digg all day are on dial-up.

        Some people simply can't afford cable internet. But if you can't afford cable internet, you probably shouldn't be buying hundreds of VC games.

        Yes, I know I'm being nitpicky, and a bit of a prick, but considering that Wiis still sell like hotcakes (and are the only consoles that make a profit on every sale), Nintendo obviously did something right, so I'd argue that everybody who complains that it doesn't have external hard drive support are being just as nitpicky as I am.

        Every console has its ups and downs, and clearly the Wii isn't targeted at the same set of hardcore gamers as the 360 and PS3.
  • deaftly, on 04/24/2008, -2/+11Why did Nintendo even give the wii an sd card slot if they weren't going to let you use it.
    • Cyber_Akuma, on 04/24/2008, -3/+3Remember the expansion slots on the bottom of the NES, SNES, and N64 that were planned for an addon but never used? (In the US at least)
    • Zap2, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1They do, just not fully.
  • BigMan13, on 04/24/2008, -9/+30Buried for annoying LOLCats bad grammar.
  • Fendahleen, on 04/24/2008, -10/+3I can has hard drive nao?
  • Shuk, on 04/24/2008, -2/+10I think we are slowly coming to the sad truth that online capabilities will not improve that much in the Wii. Nintendo is simply too scared of kids and crazy parents that they've put up a massive shield. Since the Wii doesn't have a HDD built into it, developers won't work to build games around the harddrive (like online ones that require updates). Rock Band couldn't work with the Wii because of these flaws.
    • fohf, on 04/24/2008, -2/+2They didn't seem to have a problem making it work on the PS2 with no hard drive...
    • Tahiri, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1PS2 also had USB and devs were allowed using it to store DLC.
  • MsArtGeek, on 04/24/2008, -11/+3Dugg for the LOLCats-Wii love.
  • rickwhois, on 04/24/2008, -3/+15cool
    oohhh the "can has" jargon was so entertaining at one point. Though I don't see how this title is relevant to the hard drive.
    Unless it was a L0LWii revoliution... Can we has cents able titles?
    • FFXIfrohike, on 04/25/2008, -0/+1Can I has 1 more year before people discard me as a novelty item?
  • Metylerka, on 04/24/2008, -2/+13Digg should has spell/grammar check?
  • saji79, on 04/24/2008, -7/+4I'd need to see some more downloadable content before I'd be getting additional storage, but with that said, PLEASE GIVE US SOME DLC, especially for Guitar Hero. And Tetris for VC why is there no Tetris????

    and btw, Don't be hating on LOL cats.

    • SketchaMPM, on 04/24/2008, -2/+4Uh dude, Wii Ware. ...there's also a Wii Ware Tetris on the way.
      • saji79, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Wii Ware Tetris? I stand corrected, thx.
      • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Personally, I'm looking forward to a Dr. Mario remake. That game transcends time.
    • Tahiri, on 04/24/2008, -5/+1Oh wow, tetris. It's not like the first game every programmer in school codes in 2 hours, or a game on every console ever made or anything
  • fudsak, on 04/24/2008, -1/+5Too bad Nintendo has said multiple times that they have no plans to release a hard drive or even support them.

    http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/no-wii-hard- ...
    http://www.joystiq.com/2007/06/27/wii-hard-drive-j ...
    • SkippyDoorknob, on 04/24/2008, -1/+5Yeah and they also denied they were making a new DS just days before the DS Lite was announced.
  • Smudded, on 04/24/2008, -4/+2Of course there will be a hard drive. Nintendo is looking to make as much money off of the consumer as it can with the Wii. Having a hard drive will prompt people to download more Virtual Console games, therefore making Nintendo more money.

    My theory about the Wii is that it wasn't really intended to be their next gen console. While everyone is off arguing whether or not it should be classified as one, Nintendo doesn't care. The online features really suck with the Wii and there are a ton of things that aren't included that should have been. Heck, it's basically the same hardware as a gamecube. I'm hoping that the Wii was introduced as something that would make Nintendo tons and tons of money and require them to spend very little so they could work on their real next gen console. So while everyone complains about the online features not working well and the graphics being terrible, I'm hoping that Nintendo is working on something bigger and better.
  • gak001, on 04/24/2008, -3/+19God kills a kitten every time you can has.
  • rsdigi, on 04/24/2008, -2/+4I really should bury this for the lol cats, the most unfunny lol cats I ever saw btw. Oh and Nintendo does extensive research huh? Tell that to the virtual boy. He wishes he had extensive research as he pulls that old copy of Swank over his cold body at night..at the dump.
    • jaytek13, on 04/24/2008, -3/+1It's kind of silly that you only have 1 example of where they may not have done their research to the extent they should have 15 years ago.
      • deaftly, on 04/24/2008, -4/+3NES was the most flawed console ever, GBA had no backlight, N64 used cartridges, Gamecube used mini dvd's, Wii has outdated hardware. SNES was perfect though.
        • DarKnight90, on 04/24/2008, -1/+2All great consoles but at the same time all great points.
        • fohf, on 04/24/2008, -2/+2NES was the most flawed console ever??? sorry. I have to bury you on that mistake alone. Everything else was ok especially the 'SNES was perfect' part.
          • deaftly, on 04/24/2008, -1/+3It was a total hassle trying to get games to work on the nes 90% of the time, so yea that was a huge flaw
          • knetworx, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Flawed? Hassle? No way! Anticipation is half the fun! I still blow on the disc before playing a game, and reset the console to readjust the disc a few times, just for good measure.
  • Hypersapien, on 04/24/2008, -2/+17Can we PLEASE knock off the god damn LOLspeak? It's fine on sites that are specifically dedicated to it, or someone is trying to be ironic or something, but it doesn't belong in a damn article headline.
    • Hypersapien, on 04/24/2008, -2/+4When I posted that I hadn't read the article yet. I just got to the pictures. Oh god.
      ::facepalm::
  • grapesofbaath, on 04/24/2008, -2/+13Buried for the stupid lolcat grammar and "EPIC FAIL" 4chan wannabe writing style. Learn2be funneh.
  • VIPAccess, on 04/24/2008, -2/+5***** the hard drive. Nintendo should just open the SD slot.
  • SketchaMPM, on 04/24/2008, -2/+1Despite Nintendo's denial of any hard drive plans, I think we will definitely see a storage space improvement in some form. They have to, the Wii Ware is reason enough. I'm definitely buying Wii Ware but I don't want to have to delete all of my VC games to do it.
    • Tahiri, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1"I think we will definitely see a storage space improvement in some form"

      You won't. They don't have to.

      "I don't want to have to delete all of my VC games to do it."

      You don't have to, you can copy them to SD card
  • omgsideburns, on 04/24/2008, -3/+3revolutionarwii?
  • jaytek13, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1All those points made in the article seem a bit moot. All it would take on Nintendo's end is to release an update that allows usb hard drives to be connected to the Wii along with a file browser of sorts and they could call it a day, leaving the worry about warranties, cost vs. benefit, and all the other points to the hard drive manufacturers rather than themselves.
  • SSUK, on 04/24/2008, -2/+3Nintendo doesn't have to supply the HDD though. They just have to add support for USB HDDs. They don't make SD Cards, yet they have a SD slot in the machine for 3rd party SD cards. It should be up to the owner what brand of HDD and the size of the HDD they want to be on the Wii.
    • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -0/+2They do sell Nintendo branded SD cards though.
      • willfe, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Doesn't SanDisk manufacture those and place their logo right on the cards?
        • mrgreen4242, on 04/29/2008, -0/+1Maybe, but they have Nintendo logos on them as well, so it is, for all practical purposes, a Nintendo product. ATI has their logo on the Wii itself, but that doesn't make it an ATI machine.
        • chaosblade77, on 05/24/2008, -0/+0ATI does not make the Wii. SanDisk does make the cards though. If someone's Wii somehow exploded due to an "Official Nintendo SD Card" it would be directed at the manufacturer of the card: SanDisk.

          Nintendo could do the same thing with hard drives though. Allow support for pretty much any third party hard drive but get a license with Western Digital or something to sell an "Official Wii Hard Disk" and charge a bit more for it. Stupid consumers would possibly dump money into it while knowledgeable ones would buy cheaper ones that work just as well. Nintendo has their "Official" and aren't tied up in warranty issues or anything.
  • modsuperstar, on 04/24/2008, -3/+2I think he almost broached the subject in the article, but didn't actually hit the nail on the head. Nintendo makes rock solid products and always has. Everything they make is always sturdy and kid proof. Hard drives are not kid proof. Flash makes the most sense, but as they said, they will die eventually. The obvious solution from the get go was to enable SD and Flash storage on the system, then not worry about it, as it would be a 3rd party problem and not Nintendo's issue. I thought this whole concept was genius at the time when you realize the price of flash memory. The original Xbox had an 8 gig hard drive in it, yet now you can have capacity higher then that in an SD card for a fraction of the cost of a hard drive.
    • Tahiri, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Always has? The NES has the single largest failure rate in history, 3 times that of the XBOX360. All cartridge systems they have ever made eventually fail from the same issues, just not as fast. Even my N64 needs a blowjob to get working.
      • willfe, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1The NES' most common "failure" was the cartridge reader. There are several well documented ways to repair it for under ten dollars. Not exactly a catastrophic failure.
      • modsuperstar, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1I would say the NES was a learning experience for Nintendo. Look at the SNES. You could throw that thing through a wall and it would still work.
    • willfe, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Flash can be written tens of thousands of times (or more) before failure, and the controller in every modern piece of flash automatically spreads out all writes across all blocks to mitigate that. Even if you write the same file to the same spot on a flash device ten thousand times, you've just actually written to ten thousand different bits of flash memory once. The actual lifespan of flash devices is very, very long.
  • mashedpotatoes, on 04/24/2008, -8/+3How about, Wii can has online gaming?
  • MattH, on 04/24/2008, -3/+1Nintedo released the Wii as a terminal so it can be used for cloud computing form server based technologies expeact in a couple of years that the Wii to be on a chip and in TVs as a add on .They already have the Wii embedded in a TV in Japan . Games are just the gateway to becoming a home entertainment hub they will be controlled from a Home Media server and server farms .
  • eliotmat, on 04/24/2008, -5/+1HOW TO SHOT WEB
  • cocaclay, on 04/24/2008, -3/+4Does Nintendo even care about the gamers that brought the company its early success, and the ones who will be there when the bandwagon Wii players move on to something else? First their horrible online support, and now this. I'm about to ditch Nintendo altogether and join the Microsoft and Sony club. Those two companies are putting things out that serious gamers might actually want, not some soccer mom. I am not against Nintendo appealing to a wider market, but they should at least cater to the needs of some of their more loyal, historic fans. I got the Wii because I thought they would do this, but it seems they no longer care about my type of gamer. I can't stay loyal to someone who isn't loyal to me, so it's goodbye Nintendo for the next console I get, unless Nintendo freakin improves their online play and support of true gamers. In our globalizing world, online gaming is the future, but it seems Nintendo won't give us it.
    • CancerBomb, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Owning a certain game console doesn't exclude you from owning any other game console, so there's no need to "ditch" any company. The word "ditch" in this context implies some sort of allegiance to that company, which you also shouldn't have. Nintendo doesn't owe you anything, nor does the company care about you personally. Neither does any other console maker, so don't think things will be any different if you get a PS3 or Xbox 360. They all want to make money, Nintendo just happens to be the company with the console that appeals to most gamers this time around, and they'll do whatever it takes to continue to appeal to the broadest market possible.

      That brings me to my next point, which is that your notion of a "real" gamer is only your own, and is not based on some objective standard by which the "trueness" of your status as a gamer can be measured (unless you count how much time you spend playing games and posting about them on message boards, in which case high numbers really are nothing to be proud of). You are not a more important gamer than your mom because she never played a video game in her life before Wii came out, or because you play Halo 3 and Gears of War and Call of Duty 4 - all online - and your mom only plays Wii Sports. There is no such thing as hardcore vs. casual, just what you like and don't like. One is not better than the other. It seems to me that your attitude is ***** and elitist, and if it makes you feel better to think about yourself as mattering more to a faceless corporation than some other random person then by all means do so, but realize that Nintendo is catering to the majority here, and you, the individual who has been playing games for the better part of a decade (if not longer), spends hours every week (if not every day) reading up about video games and talking about them on message boards, only plays "hardcore" games that focus more on storyline and game length rather than simple pick-up-and-play game mechanics, and actually gets worked up about things like how much better Nintendo's online plan should be are the minority. Games like Wii Sports, Wii Play, Nintendogs, and Wii Fit are (or will be, in the case of Wii Fit) more popular than the vast majority of your "hardcore" games. Deal with it.
  • funkytaco, on 04/24/2008, -2/+3If Nintendo was hypothetically worried about dying hard drives, why not just release an adapter to allow any external hard drive to be used? I personally believe it's more about homebrew and piracy.
    • mrgreen4242, on 04/24/2008, -2/+1Yes it's definitely a piracy thing. If anything proves that it's the fact the system has had expandable storage with Nintendo branded cards since day one, but it's only ised for save game files.
  • akatsuki, on 04/24/2008, -2/+2HD would be a huge thing and should have been included. But the real fiasco is the abhorrent online system. They won't fix it and it really has prevented the system from achieving anything more than being the new Twister party game.
    • willfe, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1...and consistently outselling its competition... :) Not all of us party online.
  • jpezzznuts, on 04/24/2008, -2/+2From article: "The reason why Nintendo is so profitable is because they take few risks in marketing products"
    ... well maybe now after VirtuaBoy, Super Scope Six, SNES Mouse (which ruled), Powerglove (its so bad), *not* coming out with with the Playstation (research this if you are confused), making a 64 bit cartridge based system... sure I named a few... but wasn't the Wii itself one of the biggest risks in recent console memory?
    "Hahaha what a stupid product, its a reboxed gamecube with a stupid name! No one will buy that thing!" /cashflow
  • ATLien74, on 04/24/2008, -4/+5I can has a ***** on "can has".
  • Panda200x, on 04/24/2008, -5/+4***** yeah tape drives.
  • bbqsalad, on 04/24/2008, -8/+3Wii sucks.
  • BrandonMills, on 04/24/2008, -1/+4Why do we need a hard drive in the Wii? SD cards are dirt cheap, and capacity keeps getting bigger.

    I just don't see a hard drive coming for the Wii. There would be a very small market for it that couldn't just use a large SD card instead.
    • khyberkitsune, on 04/24/2008, -1/+1there is no SPACE inside the wii for a hard drive, and the Wii already has one - solid state, 512 megs. It's not RAM, it's specifically dedicated to storage like a hard drive.
  • khyberkitsune, on 04/24/2008, -2/+1The Wii ALREADY HAS A HARD DRIVE. It's Solid-State *BUT* it's only half a gig in size, mainly for saving game states. The author of this article is a complete technological buffoon.
    • Elranzer, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1If only there was a way to increase its size (or replace it, and format it)
  • bbliss17, on 04/24/2008, -0/+1Nintendo you are a fool
  • clarkec321, on 04/24/2008, -5/+2wii is for kids and or parents/grandparents... everyone i know has sold there's cause they're *****
    • khyberkitsune, on 04/24/2008, -0/+4And you spend so much time on your XBOX360 that your grammatical and spelling skills have devolved.
  • Cotterdamn, on 04/24/2008, -4/+1Wii can has good games too?
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