"Come on Nintendo, we need a hard drive," are the words of Harmonix design director Rob Kay. We all found out a while ago just how severely gimped the Wii version of Rock Band is, something which should have come as no surprise. Harmonix doesn't want any of the blame though, and cites Nintendo's lack of storage space as the reason why one of the big flaws -- a lack of downloadable content -- is present.
"If the platform could do it, we'd jump on it", Kay explains. "It's something that we championed to Nintendo, that we'd like to do it. Who knows what will happen down the line, I don't know what's coming down the line, but that's the reason there's no DLC in Wii Rock Band"
Fair enough. I can't see everyone rushing out to buy a whole bunch of SD cards for Rock Band. The Wii does have internal memory storage, of course, but it's pitifully small, because to be honest, Nintendo doesn't think about this stuff properly. Nintendo does things its own way, modern technology and convenience be damned!
The company insists that nobody needs an external hard drive, but this is the same company that once said online multiplayer wasn't important. It's just frustrating. I honestly think the Wii could be something wonderful for everybody, but backwards-thinking stuff like this helps nobody.
Contest:
9:11 AM on 04.09.2008
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But seriously Nintendo: Hard drive. Now. Or at least full SD support. You could even market little white SD cards with mario painted on them for all the soccer moms. You'll make a billion dollars... more.
Was not the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band designed without a hard drive in mind (though stupid to still have the Core/Arcade system, but whatever).
I think full SD support is coming, starting with Rock Band.
But fuck, what do I know. They make millions and I work at a help desk.
KEYBOARD WARRIOR AWAY!!!! *flies off in the distance with his shirt tied around his neck for a cape and his tie around his head as a bandanna*
Why would a Japanese country put money in R&D, manufacture, figure out how to secure, and releae a periphiral just for a western game? They think that the sd card option is good enough for storing channels and VC games and until they have a 1st party reason otherwise they arent releasing a HDD
What happened, harmonix? You used to be cool.
How much space could Rock Band DLC use?
The overall strategy of not forcing your console price up with a 40+ GB Hard Drive that the majority of console users will barely use seems pretty great to me.
The solution has to be coming, with wiiware around the corner.
"Even Im not stupid enough to have bought Rock Band for the Wii, jeeesh."
That shouldn't happen.
To further ignore it and not adapt to changing needs (like any normal company would), could prove to be a fatal mistake on Nintendo's part.
Ajay42 nailed it on the head. Methinks Harmonix is putting too much blame on Nintendo and just intended all along to give the Wii owners a crappy PS2 port.
But, nevertheless, I agree with everyone here. Nintendo needs to stop gimping their own system by refusing to put out a hard drive.
Keep in mind that Harmonix releases at least 3 tracks every week, where as Activision sporadically releases new tracks. Food for thought, brother.
More storage would have raised the manufacturing cost. Nintendo can't afford to sell their systems at a loss, since the company is a ltd., not an inc.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't allow SD card use now. I was just answering why the main storage is that much.
If you aren't satisfied with games like Cooking Mama or Wii Sports Nintendo probably aren't the company for you.
Although I love Nintendo, sometimes their actions confuse me - I'm not at the point of anger, I just wish someone would explain what their plan is. I mean, they have to have a plan.
A lot of people talk about the big N like they are bumbling retarded people walking around bumping into walls, but they forget that they started out innovating the industry and continue to do so, sometimes I think they are just overly careful (friend codes, sticking with cartridges on the 64, etc). But I think they will have to addres this problem soon - at least I hope so.
Your totally right man. Lets all completely forget about the good games Nintendo has put out on the Wii so far like Twilight Princess, SMG, Super Paper Mario, MP3, and SSBB and think Ninty has abandoned us because of Cooking Mama and minigames/ports that they had no part in making. You're a freakin' genius.
Yeah, Nintendo certainly needs to make like, $50 profit per console.
Anyway, they could have just sold the hard-drive as an extra attachment from the beginning at a profit. There's no good explanation financially not to do a separate hard drive.
I was gonna make a similar point, but made a taco instead and forgot. Glad someone made that point, though.
-Harmonix would LOVE to put DLC on the Wii. DLC == $$$, if it was reasonable they would do it. The only reason they would do differently is if he development costs exceeded what they think they would make from the projected sales on the Wii (possibly because the majority of Wii owners aren't too savvy about using The Internets on their console)
-When we talk about manufacturing costs for the Wii, keep in mind that any costs are multiplied millons of times. Even if the HDD would only cost $20/unit, that's $200 MILLION dollars after you make 10 million consoles, for a feature that isn't even sure to sell more consoles. Given that they are basically selling the things as fast as they can make them, it doesnt seem like any extra components make economic sense.
I like the idea of a hard drive on the Wii, but in reality I already own Rock Band on the 360, so....
No. Than there was no reason for Harmonix to do like Brawl and use SD cards.
Seriously, this is bullshit. All developers do is sit around and whine that development costs are too high, so Nintendo releases this teeny little box based on a Gamecube that is supposedly so cheap on which to develop games.
Result? More bitching! Yeah, dev costs are still out of control, so only downloaded content and micro transactions will save us! BAAAW!
Shut up you lazy assholes, and do some damn WORK. That's what you are paid to do.
I do agree on the Wii lack of a hard drive though. I remember when the specs for Wii were released, while the whole Wii concept I thought was groovy, I also thought 'what? 512mb internal...where's the hard drive...wtf? It was always gonna come back to haunt them.
I think this is a very stupid japanese type of old school thinking from Nintendo, something that also extends to other japanese industries like anime and manga, where if the competition is doing this cool, we can't copy or take influence from them, and that we always have to be original, for the sake of pride, face or whatever.
Sorry Nintendo, but you need a reality check. So long as their are some of these old haggard gents at the top of Nintendo HQ, such backward thinking is the only thing that undermines their usually great tech and games. This is what I always feared when Nintendo changed the suits around a few years ago. I can't say its for the better.
We are all for keeping costs down, but you can never tell me Nintendo couldn't have stuck a 10 or 20 gb micro hard drive or something in it. Even a damn cheap arse flash drive with 4-8gb would have been fine, but to produce nothing, even after gamers and developers have requaested it is there big problem.
And how strange it is too, because when the GBA and DS had problems, they were fixed swiftly. Even the problem with the Wiimote smashing tvs debacle, and Nintendo fix it with the Wiimote jacket. So why the fuck is it so hard to produce fucking hard drive? Its not a whole new console, just storage.
I'd be very surprised if Nintendo never try to solve this problem properly in Wii's life cycle. If they don't even try to meet our needs, why bother buying one?
a) Who is going to download so many songs as to have to constantly swap around their cards. Someone said they have download EVERY SINGLE SONG and it only came to around 1 Gb. I just dont see it being as big an issue as you claim it to be.
b) Exactly how hard is it to swap two cards around. Are we that lazy?
Basically, considering the frequency with which you will need to swap (which should be very very rarely) and the effort involved (which is really really fucking minimal) i just dont see the issue in using SD cards that you always seem to get so caught up on. You seem to be stuck on the ideal that everything should be on Hard Drives, where in this situation it really makes little to no difference.
And for Harmonix to not even try? I know where im placing the blame for this cock-up.
Have you been playing the same game over and over? It takes more effort to change discs.
Given the option of using SD cards or buying a hard drive, Ill take the former.
Also, I'm sorry about the DW crack. It was cheap.
Maybe Harmonix was lazy in transferring over the PS2 version, but you know what? I hardly blame them. Given Nintendo's lack of aptitude for all things online and convenient, I wouldn't fucking bother either.