Nintendo Wii Fanboy

After screwing up and subsequently apologizing, Nintendo Europe's Laurent Fischer wants to get back to work. He does so by addressing the ever-present desire for extra Wii storage space. Yeah, kind of a touchy subject to bring up so soon after Fischergate, but there has to be some big revelation, right?

Well, apparently Nintendo are "working on a solution," but "there's no plan to issue hardware." Fischer is referring to an external hard drive, a device that geeks and otaku gamers are eager to get. Iwata gave everyone hope, but those sentiments have been pretty much squared away in the bollocks box. There's always talk, always rumors and speculation, but still no storage -- and now, no plans.

Check out the full feature for more details, but beyond telling us what we already know, Fischer and Nintendo aren't revealing anything.

We may complain a lot about the Wii's meager storage capacity, but are we using SD cards? A lot of Wii owners we know -- and not the casual owners, either -- have yet to put anything onto a card. Of course, with Wii Ware coming, that may yet change, but how does the situation stand for now? Are you storing anything? Have you even put a card into your Wii? Or are you just deleting things when -- or if -- you find that you need space?

For those you in the know (see: you, because you read Wii Fanboy), the "Twilight Hack" has been behind the recent influx of wonderful homebrew we've seen for the Wii. Whether it's just some basic Tetris, or running something entirely new, the homebrew community has had their hands full as of late.

Those who were running the exploit before needed a GameCube memory card adapter. That is not the case anymore, as the hack has been updated to support SD loading.

For those who need a visual walkthrough on the process, head on past the break for a video explaining how to do this.

Woot, if you're not familiar with the site, sells one heavily discounted closeout item per day, or until they run out. The site has become somewhat of a daily routine for technology enthusiasts who enjoy the occasional $10 MP3 player or ridiculous TV deal. Today's Woot deal is something that may be of interest to Wii owners -- more space for the fridge!

Until 12AM CST (or they run out), you can get a 2GB Dane Elec SD card for $6.99 plus $5 shipping. You may not be able to run VC games off of the SD card, but you can store them there! Also pictures and music and what have you. If you've ever wanted to experiment with the Wii's storage options, this is as good a time as any!

While we're talking Woot, at the risk of sounding like a paid endorsement (we're not), their t-shirt site is really neat.

[Thanks, Zack!]

We were intrigued by not only a comment on the VC Monday Madness video wrap-up this week, but also the weekly chore (for this blogger, at least) of rearranging Channels and moving content to and from the SD card. The Wii may have some internal memory, but it's not enough for a console that has to download every Virtual Console game.

So, we thought about moving Channels around, which we've affectionately dubbed "Channel surfin'" for ease of conversation. How often do you need to drag stuff around on your Wii? Never? Not the type to load your Wii with content that isn't on a retail disc?

You may have wondered this yourself, questioning why as you waited forever to load games to and from the SD card. And, while the dream of being able to just enjoy these Virtual Console games from your 2 or 4 gig SD card sounds like a very plausible one, the truth is very different.

See, the data access speeds for the SD card are extremely slow, apparently. That's why it takes awhile (in the case of the TG16 CD-ROM and NeoGeo, forever) to load the data onto and from there. So, if you tried to play a game directly from the card, it would be an atrocious affair. Shame, really, because the chore of copying and erasing all of this data can be a real pain.

Of course, this is all unconfirmed at this point, considering the "news" comes from a random post on an internet forum. So, if you have a grain or two of salt lying around, be sure to take this tidbit with them.

[Via Go Nintendo and Nintendo Everything]

Have you gotten so bad at playing video games that you've actually managed to have your character die in Wii Sports: Golf? Has it gotten to the point where you need some sort of "infinite lives" code just to finish a course? Well then, that is pretty shameful.

Datel's PowerSaves 512MB SD cards helps you live with that shame, giving you access to hundreds of cheats. Many of the saves on the $24.99 card have been hacked to enable features and codes that developers never even intended for their games. To sweeten the deal, Datel has also bundled in its MAX Media Manager Pro software to help users organize and transfer their photos, videos, and music to their consoles. You'll be the envy of all your friends when they see the effortless life you've made for yourself. Just like you've always wanted.

When we were having our way with the Wii all weekend, Joystiq's Kyle Orland poured over the Wii's manuals to locate their hidden secrets. In pouring over all of the pages in the manual, he stumbled upon something very interesting on page 39. There, the manual talks about the ability to "copy and delete data found on the Wii System Memory and SD cards." Problem is, he couldn't find any way to actually perform the task through the Wii. The options just weren't there in the Wii memory management screen.

Kyle has contacted Nintendo and as soon as he receives a response, we'll be sure to let you know what they say.

Supposedly, this N Gamer magazine had much more info than we previously reported on. A large supply of information from the magazine apart from what we've reported has apparently been confirmed to be true over at Go Nintendo. This information deals with the Wiimote, sensor bar, and Will Wright's Spore respectively.

The Wiimote is to take 2 AA batteries and turn them into 60 hours of gameplay. Should the player be using the sensor bar, however, then the time is cut in half to 30 hours. Either way, that's incredible. Also, the 6kb of internal memory confirmed to be included in the Wiimote is going to be used to "personalize your remote," which we assume is code for "store profile settings."

As for the sensor bar, the magazine states that the previous version that was seen at E3 has been made smaller. The magazine compares the size to that of a "couple of pencils glued together."

The magazine also confirms that Will Wright's foray into playing God through his game Spore is going to be possible on the Wii. Apparently, the Wii version will interact with the DS version by allowing the player to transmit data from one to the other seamlessly. This will allow players to "deform species on the fly."

They also speak some on the use of SD cards, reiterating that they will be used to house Virtual Console titles. The problem is that you may not play them on another Wii. They refer to this as "Digital Rights Management."

EB Games/Gamestop/EB Gamestop or whatever they're called these days occasionally gets some inside information before the press. (I say occasionally; please hold off on the "my local EB Games employee told you the Wii was coming out December 17th" tips.) A quick search of Gamestop's online store in the accessories section yields some interesting results, shows as follows:

Wii Controller Glove 9.99
Wii G-Pak Travel Case 29.99
Wii Game Wallet 9.99
Wii HD Premium Component Cable 59.99
Wii Memory SD 1.0GB 59.99
Wii Memory SD 512MB 39.99
Wii S-Video Premium AV Cable 39.99
Wii Sling Bag 29.99
Wii Storage & Protection 1.0GB Kit 69.99

We knew about the Power Glove, but the SD cards just seem like a convenient excuse for Gamestop to take people's money; the prices are quite high. The premium component cable is insanely expensive, but hey, it's premium. Other than that, your classic game-toting sling-bag take-it-anywhere-but-not-really-because-no-one-ever-does-that accessories are on the list. With the immediate need for extra controllers, memory, and games at launch, is anyone going to pick up any of these other things?

[Thanks, Randy!]

[Update 1: Clarified that the SD cards are not officially from Nintendo, and realized that you can in fact get SD cards for far cheaper.]

It's been awhile since we've heard from Reggie following his big promotion and in his latest chat with Game Informer, he confirms that the mystery flap on the front of the Wii will house the SD Card slot. In stating this, Reggie says that the SD Card is the only "announced" memory medium, so it's quite possible that Nintendo has another system up their sleeves.

As for WiiConnect24 and micro transactions, Reggie sees this as digital delivery for smaller content for games, such as exclusive items or news headlines. In the interview, he says that this will be available to third parties, but is not something that will be forced upon them.