Well, it's not a storage solution, but here it's uh ... something: Nintendo of Japan have revealed that they will be releasing a Wi-Fi network adapter in Japan on September 18.
Yup, it does appear to -- more or less -- be a Nintendo-branded, sexy looking wireless router that will match both your Wii and Nintendo DS. It doesn't look like much set up will be involved, and it's likely that Nintendo is releasing a product like this to make it as easy as humanly possible for owners to connect their Nintendo devices to the Internet. The official page notes that other devices should work with the adapter, but only the DS Lite and Wii are guaranteed compatible.
This definitely seems like a rather silly peripheral, especially in light of the fact that a lot of gamers have been patiently waiting for a hard drive or other storage solution for the Wii. Still, this may be just the thing Nintendo needs in Japan to really jump off their online services; if there's one thing I learned from my short time Tokyo last year it's that Wi-Fi and Japan aren't good friends yet.
No word on an North American release, but if it were to come Stateside, we're betting on an extremely limited release.
[Via GoNintendo, Famitsu]
Contest:
9:59 AM on 09.08.2008
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Not a bad thing, no. Never said that. But I do question whether or not this is a solution that was necessarily needed.
Nintendo's is all about the mass market now I think we can agree on that right? So why wouldn't this be needed to make it easier for those people to get their Wii's online. If they just buy one, or two games off of WiiWare, or the VC then its already well worth it for Nitnendo. Just on that fact alone!
I'm sure this is a fine piece of kit, the problem is that its not needed. Nintendo already have a Nintendo Buffalo USB Wifi adapter, so you can run you Wii through your PC, online.
A bit pointless when Linksys, etc do perfectly good stuff like this, possibly for less.
Everytime those fuck heads at Nintendo do it. People request a Wii hard drive and this gets priority? Total and utter bullshit. So much for hoping they'd listen to sense.
Furthermore, people trust products of the same brand. Yes, you could state that Nintendo is capitalizing on that fact. But, at 5,800 yen (the official page has that number, which I assume to be the price), the price is not far removed from a regular ol' router (which this technically is).
This is probably just be an obsolete reference Wifi chip, too.