Nintendo's Satoru Iwata and his company have come up with a solution to the biggest issue for Wii gamers: storage. Iwata announced during the Japan fall press conference that, in the spring of 2009, gamers can expect to have the ability to load
and play software direct from your SD card in your SD slot, as well as download items directly to their SD slot. For those of you with more than 2gbs of downloaded goodies, we only have one suggestion: buy a bunch of 2gb SD cards.
Update: Just to clarify, you won't be able to
play games direct from the SD card. You'll merely be able to download items directly to it. Sorry for the mixup.
[Thanks, Sonic_13!]
{ Oct 2nd 2008 at 1:21AM } 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
KaBob799 @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:27AM
About time =D
Master Yami @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:33AM
That was the solution I was expecting. So will this mean the channels stay on the screen and it requests the SD card when you load it, because that's what I'm hoping.
If the same update patches homebrew, I'll be pissed.
Roto13 @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:49AM
Why? It'll take like twenty minutes for those tricky home brewers to get around it.
iofthestorm @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:45AM
@roto13: seriously, I remember when the 3.3 update hit it literally took like 20 minutes for them to find a workaround.
mapi @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:31AM
I have trouble believing they really need until 2009 to address this issue.
Too bad the SD reader in the Wii is slooooooooooow
hvnlysoldr @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:34AM
They're trying to figure out how to speed the reading without compromising their "security."
Master Yami @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:35AM
I'm thinking the reason it will take that long is because they maybe want to include more with it, or they will have a big homebrew patch. With the storage 'solution' in there, it might convince some to throw the brew away.
iofthestorm @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:45AM
Haha, too bad their security is already compromised. People have been pirating VC stuff for a while, and now there's a buggy ISO loader too. I've never tried either though. I'm wondering if the DSi was partly just to add more complex firmware to the DS to prevent piracy, but I bet hackers will crack it open pretty fast since it's got a built in SD slot.
tommy @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:29AM
so basically it is what we already do with the homebrew channel
Sonic_13 @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:36AM
This is definitely the way to go. I've said many times before that releasing a hard drive would've been a mistake. The much more obvious and easiest solution is to simply open up SD card support, which I'm glad Nintendo has chosen to do.
Now, I wonder if you'll be able to do anything like play VC games on DSi since it has a SD card slot too...
iofthestorm @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:47AM
Ooh, that is interesting. The DS does have enough power for NES and a lot of SNES games through homebrew, and they haven't mentioned whether the DSi has a better processor so this could be a possibility, which would be awesome. Or, they could actually port VC games to DS instead of emulating and then N64 games would be possible too.
Marcelo @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:05PM
That would be kickass. Take your VC games on the go.
pjsingh @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:57PM
You know what would be the best? If nintendo made a vc on the DSi, but only with gba games, since there is no slot
Greg2k @ Oct 3rd 2008 8:28AM
I believe the RAM on the DS would only allow NES and SNES VC games. Since an emulator loads the whole ROM into, well, RAM, an N64 title simply wouldn't fit. Plus you'd have the whole controls issue.
But definitely, NES and SNES games, along with GB, GBC and GBA games would certainly make a lot of sense on the DSi
rouroniJohn @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:44AM
oh no what about all the homebrewers?
so is this where downloaded songs from GH:WT go?
TheOverlord#2 @ Oct 2nd 2008 6:19PM
You have to have 200 blocks on your internal memory that'll act as a DLC cache. Every other song can go on your SD card.
prateeko @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:50AM
Actually, according to IGN (who has a Japanese correspondent or two) he said you'll be able to save and move items to SD. I'm not sure if you can actually play from the SD card...
http://wii.ign.com/articles/915/915504p1.html
Ferco @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:53AM
You are able to save and move items to a SD card right now, so why would they mention that at a press conference?
prateeko @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:58AM
Uh, right now I thought you had to redownload games and couldn't move the actual downloaded games to the SD card. I figured it wasn't just my Wii...
milan @ Oct 2nd 2008 3:07AM
well i dunno about all that, but i DO know that I did just move some wiiware and VC games onto my SD card for storage...
Shadow31 @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:03PM
Dude, I have all my VC and WiiWare games backed up on an SD card since my internet hates my Wii. You can move the games back and forth, it just takes forever.
Neil @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:56AM
Can the Wii read SDHC cards?
prateeko @ Oct 2nd 2008 1:59AM
No, 2GB limit
Neil @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:08AM
This doesn't sound like a very good solution then. With Nintendo seeming only too happy to keep cranking out accessories for the Wii, why not a hard drive?
jfrdricks @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:07AM
Well I guess this is a solution... not the one most nintendo fans were looking for but still, its a solution.
iofthestorm @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:49AM
Wow, kind of underwhelming. Homebrewers did this ages ago, and this really doesn't solve much since SD cards are limited to 2GB. I was hoping for USB mass storage support and maybe even media center functionality, but I don't really mind since that's already available through homebrew anyway, and I probably won't download more than 2GB worth of VC/Wiiware stuff anyway.
Rengifo @ Oct 2nd 2008 4:09PM
if people are discontent with this 2gb sd storage, I hope it's not for the fact that you'll have to get up and put in another SD card, that's an excuse for lazy people.
milan @ Oct 2nd 2008 3:11AM
if any one is wondering, (i think) 2GB is like nearly 10000 blocks of "Wii memory".. that's like 150 Mega Man 9s!
(totally gross estimations from the top of my head, please correct me if necessary)
Knoxximus @ Oct 5th 2008 3:05PM
Actually closer to 22,000 blocks.
milan @ Oct 5th 2008 6:49PM
ah shit, you're right, i thought i had a 512 MB SD card in my system but it was my 256 actually.. time to get a 2 gigger!
LeChuck @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:28AM
2 GB might not be much but it's 4 times the internal storage. And it's not like they're expensive. If you need a couple it's still much cheaper than a hard drive would've been, especially if they made their own like Xbox.
benmully @ Oct 2nd 2008 6:10AM
FINALLY!!!! But why do we have to wait 6 months for it :-(
sockatume @ Oct 2nd 2008 6:57AM
Where does IGN's article say you can play from SD cards? It says you can download directly to SD cards, and that copying to and from main memory is easier, but that's it.
ramuji @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:25AM
I've been wondering the same thing. I just re-checked the Gamega live blog of the conference and it says nothing about playing games directly from SD. It only says what you point out about directly downloading to SD and "easier" copying (whatever that means).
John Le @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:07AM
So what about the GH:WT and Rock Band 2 DLC for the Wii versions?
We only get DLC by Spring 2009?
Ferco @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:31AM
This announcement is for VC and Wiiware, Activision/Vicarious Visions and Harmonix can probably use the SD-card however they like.
hozay @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:30AM
firmware update to support SDHC?
SDHC supports upwards of 32GB!
m-p{3} @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:58AM
Nintendo is finally waking up.
Downloadable, persistent content for the Nintendo DS coming, and now SD card that can be used to directly load WiiWare and Virtual Console games.
Yay! I'm getting back some faith in Nintendo.
igorponweed @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:08AM
I don't understand the gripes. Sure, we have to load it, but it beats checking if we can re-download, clear space, check if we can re-download, clear space, re-download.
adolson @ Oct 2nd 2008 9:19AM
Wow. Just wow. Over two years on the market before a solution finally surfaces? Wow.
Oneiroi @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:15AM
I love how they hyped their solution for so long, telling everyone they were working hard on a solution, and they came up with something people have been asking for since they released the console.
Nate @ Oct 2nd 2008 12:48PM
I'm hoping for SDHC support.
Also, anyone else mad about the lack of GBA slot on the DSi? I play A LOT of GBA games on my DS lite.
Kenji @ Oct 2nd 2008 2:44PM
I have the Homebrew channel installed, but I don't know how to execute legitimately-purchased VC and Wiiware games directly from the SD slot. Does anyone have a link?
Shadow31 @ Oct 2nd 2008 10:01PM
Dude, I've been homebrewing for awhile and, as far as I understand, you cannot load legitimately acquired WiiWare and VC games. That's only for pirated stuff.
Kenji @ Oct 3rd 2008 8:48AM
Thanks, man. That's what I thought, but I mistook comments on this thread to suggest otherwise.
jmf @ Oct 2nd 2008 4:17PM
Was that so hard Nintendo??
(although if they keep the 2 gb limit thats kind of a bummer).
ften @ Oct 2nd 2008 6:00PM
There is NOT a 2GB limit on SD cards, there is a SDHC Issue. I wrote a little bit about it on
GBATemp;
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=99545
Link to the spreadsheet;
http://fathertom.net/wii/4gbsd.xls
Patius @ Oct 2nd 2008 6:20PM
It might try and kill homebrew, but the new update sure as hell didn't do it.
They might have given up, and just try and fight the pirates from a different angle. (Law suits)
(BTW, you guys remember that Patent infringement Case? I know the guy who represented Nintendo. Turns out that the judge rule that 20 million cause he had ruled fairly and people were saying that they would never go in his court and stuff, kind of interesting stuff)
Steve @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:13PM
My 4Gb SD card works in my Wii? Where do you get the 2Gb limit from?
leonus11 @ Oct 3rd 2008 6:38AM
well this is somewhat of a solution for me. only thing i'm worried about is how big are the GCN games going to be since i might be storing them on the SD card. doesn't bother me about the homebrew channel. sure it can be used for LEGAL purposes, but the fact can't be denied that it was made MAINLY to play pirated games. and i'm not one to pirate so yeah. homebrew channle go bye-bye? my respones? idc, never used it anyway. never had it for that matter.