Guitar Hero: World Tour devours your storage space
If your Wii's teensy amount of storage space currently resembles an overflowing suitcase, then Guitar Hero: World Tour isn't about to make life any easier.
According to Vicarious Visions' Karthik Bala, the game allows you to download songs to an SD card, but you'll still require "about 200" free blocks of memory to be used as a "content cache" for the song you're playing through. Once you've finished with that track, you can clear the cache and transport another of your downloaded songs to your 200 reserved blocks. Transferring songs, explains Bala, happens "pretty quickly."
It sounds like a workable solution, but 200 blocks? That's the equivalent of six Mega Man 2s or three Super Metroids, and is bigger than some N64 games; we're also curious about Karthik Bala's personal definition of "pretty quickly." Protip, Nintendo: if you were thinking of announcing a storage solution in the next decade, next week's Japanese Media Summit would be the ideal time.
Gallery: Guitar Hero World Tour
[Via Go Nintendo]











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Roto13 @ Sep 24th 2008 4:32PM
Be happy you get DLC at all. :P
Ferco @ Sep 24th 2008 4:58PM
I'm very happy.
eugaet @ Sep 24th 2008 5:21PM
Extremely happy.
I'll be skipping Rock Band this iteration.
Hafk @ Sep 24th 2008 4:55PM
What a price for DLC. But still, having DLC that's kinda a pain is better than no DLC at all!
comtar @ Sep 24th 2008 5:16PM
Sadly this is why I am getting Mega Man 9 on the PS3, I am just getting very low on storage right now on my Wii, I don't like the idea of having to remove data only to redownload it. I would think games could run off the SD Card or even run off a USB hard drive with a simple patch. There seems to be proof right now Wii systems in Hospitals are rigged with an external drive to contain the games without the discs... so the technology is already out there in available, just not to the general public, and that's the part I think truly blows.
grp110nyr @ Sep 24th 2008 7:27PM
I see your point about redownloading VC games but I recently did it since I upgraded my wireless router for $45 the download times seem to be very fast and tolerable.
bug frawg @ Sep 24th 2008 8:33PM
While there may already be a wii hard drive(or just a regular drive working with a firmware patch) you gotta remember that the unit is in a hospital where they generally know it won't be used for piracy. data executable from external memory is every pirate's dream.(yes, you can pirate wii games now, but a hard drive could make for convenient storage for illgotten goods)
Roto13 @ Sep 25th 2008 1:29AM
I copy everything to my SD card soon after I download it for the first time. Then I don't have to bother to keep track of what I can delete and what I can't, and when I want to play a deleted game it takes like 30 seconds to copy it back from the SD card. It'd take me longer than that to get up and load a disc. :P
Matt @ Sep 25th 2008 4:06AM
Hey, if the DLC actually works, this is fine by me.
http://www.miitube.co.uk/
Ronny @ Sep 24th 2008 5:21PM
I was debating on whether or not to get this for the wii or the ps3. I have 2 GH III guitars for the wii and like how they vibrate during star power. But had finally decided to get it for the ps3, even though I'd have to buy 2 more guitars. I figured that vicarious visions would have to go with the whole "empty out the refrigerator thing."
HappyFunBall @ Sep 24th 2008 6:32PM
Now, if they hold up their end of getting quality DLC, I'll be happy.
Calvin @ Sep 24th 2008 6:35PM
Yeah, I like Guitar Hero, and my Wii has plenty of space once I delete some of my VC/Wiiware titles that I don't play anymore.
grp110nyr @ Sep 24th 2008 7:27PM
200 blocks is nothing. I just deleted a bunch of VC games that I have not played in a while. Yes I would have liked more space but Acti and Nintendo seemed to have come up with a solution and it is not a $160 HDD attachment ala MS add on. I am looking forward to this one and have to prevent myself from getting RB2 everyday.
Louie @ Sep 24th 2008 8:09PM
Well, I recently ordered a 2-pack of 2GB SD cards, at least one of them is destined for the Wii. And I don't have any other purpose for the other yet. I think the 2-pack was around $12-13 on Buy's website
Gewurztraminer says: Shinkuu Gadouken! @ Sep 24th 2008 8:13PM
I'm sure I could scrounge up a good 200 blocks pretty quickly if needed. That Ocarina of Time channel still hasn't gotten any play...
Besides, I think I've got around 180 left at the moment. With nothing currently on the SD card save for some photos.
bug @ Sep 24th 2008 8:37PM
Am I correct in assuming that the Wii's flash storage works like other flash storage? If so, this could cause some major problems. The stuff has a definite life span, and too much writing can kill it pretty quickly.
Want proof? Defrag a typical USB drive a couple times....
I have absolutely no interest in this kind of game (except maybe for the drum parts), but I do think that they need to do *something* about the storage options because of things like this.
bug frawg @ Sep 24th 2008 11:29PM
Given I own games that already write that often to flash, it's a safe bet that flash units used for game consoles are designed to endure a larger number of writes.
KIMP @ Sep 24th 2008 9:42PM
How many blocks can a 2GB card hold for the Wii?
bug frawg @ Sep 24th 2008 11:11PM
The wii is saying my 2gb has '14824 blocks free' after I had to move some of my brawl vault data(about 60 blocks worth) and a few channels to the card, if that helps.
Angelus @ Dec 20th 2008 12:24PM
200 blocks it's normal! The songs of GH:WT have the guitar, bass, drums and "normal" song tracks! Each song uses 20-25 megabytes :)