Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Now that Iwata has said that folks at Nintendo might be considering doing something about the storage crisis, it's time to get our speculation on about what will happen. Will we hear an announcement at E3? Perhaps before, or -- gasp -- after? We would hate to wait! And what'll it be? A new model with a built-in hard drive? Considering the continuing difficulty some people have with simply laying hands on a Wii, that seems unlikely, but multiple SKUs have worked for the other systems. Still, that sort of solution seems far, far less likely than an upgrade allowing larger SD cards or additional plug-in flash memory. Do you think we'll see a solution by the end of the year, and do you care to guess just what it might be?

Yes, you read that title correctly. The dire situation regarding every Wii owner not having enough storage space is being considered by the Big N, so you can all bet we're happy campers. While Nintendo president Satoru Iwata doesn't come out and say that Nintendo is working on a hard drive for the console, or some other solution, he does say enough to get our hopes up for some sort of memory expansion (or support for external hard drives through USB).

"Statistically speaking, it is true that there are a small number of customers who feel that the flash memory is too small, while many others find that they have plenty of memory," says Iwata. "However, because this small number of people are none other than the most avid players, we know we have to review the best possible solution to eliminate their inconvenience." Interesting bit in that last line, if we may say so.

We all know that being able to re-download something just isn't a good enough solution because, well, it's a total pain. But, if Nintendo can come up with a solution to our storage space issues that doesn't provide us with a hard drive to buy or support for USB external drives, we'll be fine with it. We just need something to help us eliminate the chore of moving things around each and every week.

[Via IGN; Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Even Wii lovers can find a few things to complain about, but let's be real here -- if you're going to complain, make sure your beef is accurate (and worth writing home about). Chad Sapieha of the Globe and Mail's Controller Freak blog seems to disagree with that, however. While we have to offer up kudos over the fact that he spread the anti-love around evenly among all three current-generation consoles in his recent post of hate, we still take issue with some of his Wii complaints.

His first complaint about the Wii is that it isn't as cheap as it appears. In order to play the best multiplayer games on the system, he says, within the comfort of your home with friends, you have to buy three more controllers and three nunchuks. To support this, he uses the examples of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii Sports. However, you don't need four nunchuks for the latter unless you feel like building a rounded tower, and the only game that even requires four Wii remotes is four-player tennis. As for Brawl, it seems likely to us that most Wii owners who have picked up Brawl have a GameCube controller or two lying around, and since that seems to be the preferred way to play anyway, that certainly cuts down the expense. Next he mentions the required investment of a 4 GB card for "avid downloaders," but we're of the opinion that "avid downloaders" who are strapped for cash might just do what Nintendo recommends, and download, delete, and re-download at need. We're not saying the Wii's storage system is without problem, but a 4 GB card is hardly a must.

Sapieha's other complaints strike chords, however, even if one is the most rehashed complaint of all: friend codes. His other issue? The lack of demos for Virtual Console games. While we agree that demos would be awesome, there's no shortage of videos of Virtual Console games available. Not only can you get them on Nintendo's official site, but you can see 'em right here, too. It may not be as good as a demo, but it's better than nothing.

The point? If these are the worst things we can find to complain about, Wii owners are doing okay.

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?

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!]

But how practical is that? Picture yourself in a year. Will you really want to do that? Will you even want to use SD cards? And re-downloading is twice as bad considering that sometimes, there are just issues with the Virtual Console and downloads don't go through. How often does this happen to you? For us, it's only been a few times, but it's still a problem that could be avoided here ... if we only had a hard drive.

Where do you keep your Wii, games, and accessories? Are they scattered about or neatly organized on shelves, with spare controllers tucked away in drawers? Personally, this blogger has sort of a hybrid approach: games are kept neatly on the nearby game-and-CD stand, the Wii itself is positioned just-so on its shelf on the iron gaming stand, but when it comes to controllers, things are a little more haphazard depending on what's getting the most play at the time. What's your storage strategy?

If you've ever considered yourself a person of class, a member of the gaming bourgeoisie if you will, you'd turn your nose up at the idea of keeping your controllers in a plastic bin or wicker basket. That's the sort of practice you'd rather leave to those of lesser fortune and breeding, right?

No, your discriminating tastes demand more sophisticated storage solutions. You require something like Brando's WeDock, a product that does very little for its $19 price tag, but does it quite stylishly. The small locker's clean, white design matches your Nintendo Wii along with any Apple sensibilities you might have. Its one-touch, "springboard" slots fit up to two remotes and nunchucks.

When guests ask if the WeDock recharges your remotes' batteries, you'll laugh in their faces until they bow their heads in shame. Of course it doesn't. Jump past the post break for more product shots.

Tired of dark, dour DVD/game shelves looming over the sparkling purity of your Wii? This Wii-themed stand may be the answer you've been looking for. The white mini-tower holds twelve game, but is stackable, so that as you acquire more Wii games, you can just add another shelf. Genius! Now we just need to find someone in Japan who will ship a few over ... or we could just start painting shelves around the house. Hmm ....

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.]