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Everything You Need to Know About the Wii Storage Solution

Posted by Joe Keiser

 

As we’ve said, one of Nintendo’s big reveals at GDC today is the long, long awaited solution to the Wii’s storage woes. It's so obvious it's not even worthy of a condescending drum roll: it’s just the ability to load Virtual Console and WiiWare games off an SD card. Could someone please explain to me why this took two years to roll out?

From today’s Nintendo GDC keynote, we know that this solution adds 32GB SDHC card support and is implemented via an SD card menu that looks a lot like the Wii menu. But I’ve been playing with it, and so have all the extra little details after the jump. This might be rather fine data for something as pedestrian as a storage solution, but don’t blame me: Nintendo has given me way too long to think about what I want from this.

Here’s the breakdown:

  1. There’s load time. The Wii still can’t actually load games in-place off the SD card; instead it has to copy them to system memory temporarily, and then load it. This means you will be twiddling your thumbs while the copy takes place, and on a big game like Sin & Punishment this load can be nearly twenty seconds long.
  2. It recognizes all previously backed-up VC and WiiWare games. Imagine my surprise and buyer’s remorse when I opened up the SD card menu for the first time and found Solomon’s Key, a launch VC title I hadn’t played since 2006. If your SD card is where your ill-conceived late-night VC purchases have been buried, get ready to be slapped by a bunch of history.
  3. The Wii Shop can only sort of use the SD card. While you can download from the Shop onto the SD card just fine, once the game gets there the shop can’t see it right away (ie: it flags the game as “downloadable” instead of “downloaded”). Only if you try to download the game to the SD card again will it figure out you already have it and give you an error. If you’re like me, you have WiiWare junk all over the place, and this update isn’t going to help you get more organized.
  4. Don’t move your save games. If they didn’t work off SD card before, they still won’t now. This is a VC/WiiWare solution only.
  5. It doesn’t break The Homebrew Channel. If you already have it installed you can still use it after the update, so don’t worry about that half-finished game of Beneath a Steel Sky you were playing in ScummVM.


Related Links:


GDC News: Wii Storage Solution Confirmed
GDC News: Final Fantasy to Hit Virtual Console
Virtual Console New Year's Resolutions


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Comments

John said:

When it says it's copying them to system memory, do we know if it mean the internal storage or the RAM? It would make a difference if you have no storage space left, and would effect the wear and tear on the storage, which is why I'm wondering.

March 25, 2009 6:25 PM

Roto13 said:

I noticed that the second time I launched the Nintendo Channel from the SD card menu, it was faster, so it apparently copied it to my Wii and left it there. But it says that there are still a ton of free blocks on my internal memory so I guess it just overwrites it when it needs the space for something else. Kind of like when you delete something from your hard drive, it's not really gone until the space on your hard drive is used for something else.

You can actually run the Home Brew channel FROM the SD card.

March 25, 2009 7:15 PM

John said:

Ah, I just looked at the channel management in the settings and there's one called "SD card data" which is the exact same size as the last SD card game I loaded. Well I guess the good thing about caching it is that it reduces wear and tear for a game you play a lot.

March 25, 2009 8:05 PM

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

I would still love the ability to back up games with save data which I consider valuable, but this is still a nice step forward.

March 25, 2009 10:41 PM

Roto13 said:

What do you mean exactly? You can copy save files to an SD card and keep them there or on your PC hard drive if you want some extra security. (Except for online games like Brawl, and even then there's a homebrew solution.)

March 26, 2009 12:08 AM

Odin said:

Roto -

I don't care to mess about with homebrew solutions.  I (and others, like LBD) just want to be able to conveniently back up our data in as many places as possible.

March 26, 2009 12:26 AM

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

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