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Nintendo: Wii hard drive is a no go ... suckers photo

Nintendo, lovers of innovation and customer appreciation (sinister smile), have come out and confirmed that the Wii will not have an external hard drive for those who wanted such a convenience. Check it out:

Nintendo has dismissed reports that it's going to release an external hard disk drive for the Wii so that people can transfer some of their stuff off the machine's internal flash drive, but it has confirmed that the DS is about to get a voice communication headset.

Japanese magazine Gamelabo claimed that Nintendo Japan executives had met recently to discuss the hard disk drive, but Nintendo UK told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz that that's "pure rumour and speculation".

External storage is handy for Wii owners who like to buy games via Virtual Console, as the 512MB internal drive can quickly fill up. At the moment, users can invest in an SD flash-card to help store some of their software and save-game files away from the main system.

Is it really so hard to maybe put out a little something for your loyal customers? Seriously, what the hell? It's not like the company would sell it for free.


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32 comments | showing # 1 to 32

Necros's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 10:32
Necros
This is a severe disappointment to me. Not sure what I can do about it, but the internet is made for bitching, so count me as one of the many who screamed out in unison, only to be silenced.
Geoff's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 10:32
Geoff
Ugh. Not sure if you saw when I busted out my Wii, but I'm actually almost out of space. D:

Nintendo, I'm holding on by a thread... PLEASE do something to reassure my faith. ;_;
BluDesign's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 10:35
BluDesign
What's wrong with SD cards? I mean, all they'd have to do is flip a switch on the firmware to make that shit accessible.

Plus if you're like me, you already backup your VC stuff to SD anyway. I've got 13 games on my Wii right now (and that's not counting inevitable future purchases of OoT or Starfox, either...) and I've got like 1200 blocks or more of free space left. I'm not worried about filling it up. Not when I can offload the games to my SD card which still has over 5000 blocks free.

Make the SD cards accessible and this becomes a moot issue. A 2-4 GB's worth of space would hold a MASSIVE game collection.
-D-'s Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 10:45
-D-
Don't count it out just yet. Anyone remember this?

"There is no DS redesign coming."

**short time later**

Introducing the DS Lite!
TorpedoTed's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 10:47
TorpedoTed
Who needs and external HDD, like the guy above said SD cards are getting bigger, compression is getting better. External hard HDD will just slow it all down.
Rather have a new Knights game then an external HDD ;¬)
Geoff's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:00
Geoff
I've actually had nothing but bad experience with SD cards. An article on here for a 2 GB SD card that I bought seemed to wipe itself. I can't afford to get another one at the moment, but I do have a Portable HD I wanted to be compatible.

Even though my VC games can just be redownloaded, I can't trust any game progress saves on it. Of course, the saves aren't much more than a kilobyte now, but when bigger content comes out with downloadable content, I'll have to redownload all the games.

Of course, I'm just thinking about the future, here.
Hexen525's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:01
Hexen525
It's well known in the gaming biz that anything not sold in the original console box will not be supported by 99% of developers(PS2 HDD, Sega CD, Sega 32x, etc...). Other than more space to hold your stuff, there would not be much use for it.
BlindsideDork's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:06
BlindsideDork
Wii might be getting NiGHTS...I sent in an email Summa.
PappaDukes's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:11
PappaDukes
Meh. Guess I'm sticking with the 2GB SD cards (which I haven't even had to use yet).
BlindsideDork's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:13
BlindsideDork
Yeah, I was hoping to use an External Harddrive but VC games are pretty small so unless you buy just about all of them, I don't forsee people running out of a lot of room.

The main thing I use my 1GB SD card is for mp3s for Excite Truck.
Husky Hog's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:17
Husky Hog
As soon as I read "suckers" at the end of the tittle I knew it was going to be sux 2bu
LostCrichton's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:23
LostCrichton
it would be nice if in a firmware update external storage solutions were made available through the USB.
subnet6's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:30
subnet6
This is good news!

I hope they DON'T release an add-on harddrive. That would only increase the likelihood that the Wii will not support our own external USB hard drives. I would much rather have a simple firmware update to allow external hard drives than to have Nintendo pull a microsoft and bitchslap us with overpriced proprietary hard drives.
Hipple's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:38
Hipple
Yeah, it's hard for me to experience some nice schadenfreude here since I'm stuck with my $100 360 HDD.

"...pull a Microsoft and bitchslap us with overpriced proprietary hard drives"

Exactly.
witthaus's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 11:57
witthaus
i agree that SD cards are a very convenient alternative in lue of a lack of external hard drive, but Nintendo should get with the times. The Wii is a highly popular system amongst many consumers and one great selling aspect for many of today's electronic products is compactness and easy accessibility. The Wii captures both of these elements to a degree, but could optimize its "user-friendly" persona by having a larger internal memory capacity.
jamisu's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 12:05
jamisu
If things like the Neo Geo or Saturn start coming out on the VC, you're gonna wish you had that external HD.
TheBrain's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 12:14
TheBrain
@jamisu

Exactly. SD cards are fine for NES, SNES, TG16, Gen and such, maybe even N64, but if we ever want Saturn games on the Virtual Console then we will need a hard drive.

There are many Saturn games that I want. Unlike NES, SNES, N64, TG16 and Genesis games, getting free emulated Saturn games is considerably more difficult. So I'd actually pony up cash for Saturn games, but I'd only be able to fit maybe one on my Wii if I'm lucky. Two or three on higher end SD cards. Not quite enough space if you ask me.

This is all moot though as Nintendo will not be offering Saturn games. If they were going to, they'd be offering a hard drive first. Guess I'll stick with emulation.
TheBrain's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 12:14
TheBrain
Not that I would ever do anything as shady as play emulated videogames.
BahamutZero's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 12:32
BahamutZero
anybody else know the deal about not being able to copy certain games / VC games / saves to the SD card? It's kind of like what's the point of the sd cards if you can't copy everything over
CaffeinePowered's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 13:12
CaffeinePowered
Just because Nintendo is not going to release its own external HDD, does not mean that they might not add support for connecting one in the future.
bhive01's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 13:48
bhive01
They don't really have to add anything other than a firmware update. The USB port is right in the back. All they have to do is add the feature. The sooner the better, but obviously, it isn't going to happen.

Maybe, just maybe, one day Nintendo will pull it's head out of it's ass with things like this. I can only hope that the day comes sooner rather than later...
falsoman's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 14:03
falsoman
Well, all i see is people that keep misunderstainding pr crap with facts. Nintendo did not say we are not going to release ever a hard drive, they basicly said, that it was pure rumor and speculation.

And it was the same with the DS-Lite, they told something like "We have no plans of indtroducing a redesign next-week", wich was what people was speculating, and they introduced the DS-lite two weeks after that. Yup it kinda sucked for people waiting, it was pr crap, but they didn't "lie" or anything. Just like normally sony does. They don't actually lie, they just move over the tangent of things with ambiguous words.
spliffster's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 15:36
spliffster
Yeah, hopefully sooner rather than later, I agree =)





http://splifit.com

spliffster's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 15:37
spliffster
Yeah, hopefully sooner rather than later...

Splifit
Mxyzptlk's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 15:37
Mxyzptlk
I don't see a point in even having one. There's no HD trailers and huge game demos like XBL, so you're left with VC titles and game saves to burn up space. It'll be a LONG time before the system memory fills up, and even longer to fill up a 2 gig SD card. One thing Nintendo's always been good at with their games is keeping their save file size tiny.

Saturn VC games seem like a pipe dream anyway. Besides the storage space it would take up, they would take forever to download. Sega would be better off releasing "Best of Saturn Collection" discs.
SpencersGifts's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 16:56
SpencersGifts
This is one of the key reasosn why Nintendo will turn into a game delevoper only like sega did. Not because their a bad company or cant systems, its because the higher ups still have the train track thinking. They never do anything to change or differ from there ONLY course.
vgfreak30's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 20:47
vgfreak30
no offense but are you retarded? Seriously, Nintendo has been here for 20 years and always does good. Want t know another reason they wont become like sega? They make money from their consoles, like they make $50 a wii. And nintendo has already halved 360 sales in a third of the time. Seriously some of the stuff people say.
SpencersGifts's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/19/2007 23:29
SpencersGifts
Retarded, no, realistic, yes

Can you honestly say that?

Sega 15 years ago was a powerhouse, that TECHNICALLY was doing better at certain points thing nintendo was. The only reason nintendo did better was becasue they had the money and the connections to push around, and make some A title games.

What is happening now?

Sony and Microsoft are big powerhouses, and Nintendo, as strong as they are, are still letting the the big names slip through because they wanna stick with their "kids are the world" BS

I think they forgot that the millions theyve made from people when they first started, that those people are in their 20's and 30's. Where are the adult games? Hell where are the GAMES.

Virtual Console and Sequels can only hold out so long
questworld's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/20/2007 00:06
questworld
Well it does only say "pure rumour and speculation" and it's from the UK division. Furthermore I seem to recall Iwata mentioning something about being able to various kinds of storage medium over a year ago, at least speculatively.
Ballistic90's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/20/2007 05:30
Ballistic90
SpencersGifts: Nintendo has been the only game company between Sony and MS that's actually been making money straight for the past few years, even thought everyone considered the Gamecube a 'failure'. They're not going anywhere.

There is that Demo channel that was rumoured, and I hope they introduce HD support around the same time. If not, you can get a 2 gig SD card for $20 if you know how to shop right.

And VGfreak, Nintendo as a company is over 100 years old. Not just 20.
SpencersGifts's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/20/2007 17:24
SpencersGifts
Yea you have to remember too, they make money because of the NAME.

How many A titles did the gamecube have? 5? Or so, but nothing really else.

And yes they probably have made more money then microsoft and sony, but thats only because they spent about 10% of what they did. You have to remember if your selling a car for 20k that cost 3k to make, your going to have a bigger profit.

Nintendo has said they dont care about all the bells and wistles that sony and microsoft care about. And thats one big upset

They get good sales because of the DS, more then the gamecube ever did.

And because parents see the nintendo name, and they know their getting a kid friendly game, which they cant always do with the other two
vgfreak30's Avatar - Comment posted on 03/21/2007 16:44
vgfreak30
Yeah they have no choice because MS and sony are multi billion dollar corporations that can afford losses. Do you not understad that nintendo has no choice but to make money as a company so that they stay a company, you do know that how business goes right. Oh as far goes kiddie titles i see them with alot of Mature A titles coming your way. They have zelda already, then project hammer, no more heroes, disaster day of crisis, the new resident evil game coming out, manhunt 2, plus they may release gta for it. And that is off the top of my head, im sure there is many more. And guess what, games dont have to be mature. You want to know why? Because people play games to have fun and experience new things.
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