Nintendo is really, really not a fan of this whole “downloading modern games” thing. Which is reasonable, to a degree, they’re worried about piracy.
That said, it tells you just how unenthusiastic they are about it that the Wii U basic system, with 8GB of memory, which is already pathetic, actually has a functional memory of 3GB.
That was not a typo. Better hit Best Buy and buy a few hard drives!
Essentially, the problem is that the system software is almost as bulky as Windows 8. Between formatting the drive and the stuff that need to be on there because Nintendo thinks you care about having your Mii run around in WaraWara Plaza, 5GB of space is spoken for before you download a game.
To give you an idea of how insane this is, Wii U games will be up to 32GB of data. The Basic edition will literally not be able to store Nintendo Land in its internal memory. Bafflingly, Nintendo has promised that almost every game that hits the Wii U in stores will also be available to download. Does Western Digital own Nintendo secretly or something?
Of course, Nintendo has pretty much already addressed this by making the Wii U compatible with any hard drive that can take a USB cord, and USB hard drives are relatively cheap. But even so, it’s a little shocking it has that little storage.
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Storage has always been a weird Nintendo oversight — it’s the first thing their hardware division cuts when they’re trying to pinch pennies. Every single time.
N64 — remember those god-awful controller paks?
Gamecube — no hard drive option at all. You had to use super restrictive Nintendo memory cards (the ones the system launched with were 250 KB…that’s *kilobytes*) to save games all the way through the system’s lifespan.
Wii — Never got more than 512 MB of memory. Real SD support took like, 3 years to happen.
3DS – Comes with only a 50-cent 2 GB SD card.
Buy a Nintendo console, get f–ked on storage. I’m numb to it.
I will give them at least this much; they’ve moved away from proprietary crap, at least.
Yeah I’m not sure what the big deal is, 32GB (and higher) SD cards are really cheap, I got one for 22 dollars that I’m putting into my 32GB WiiU, so I’ll effectively have close to 60GB of actual space on mine. Also pretty sure cheap flash drives work, I got a 3pk of 4GB ones at wally world for 7 dollars the other day.
What I’m really interested to see is how Nintendo and their third parties manage digital vs retail pricing, as right now the pricing for digital versions of games is identical to retail; will we see games still priced at 49.99 or 59.99 on their shop several months after those games are dropped well below that at retail?
Also told that so far there don’t appear to be any online passes for any of the EA games, so thats another thing I’m interested in following going forward.
SD cards can’t be used to store game data, just Mii and profile stuff.
The big deal is that I should at least be able to play the release games on the console I buy. This is one of the big problems PC gaming has.
Also, there is always a snag. What if WD or Seagate hard drives are incompatible with the new software?
@Dan: Ah yeah I see that, looking at the FAQ. Seems like an odd decision on their part. Also find it pretty hilarious that their FAQ specifically recommends not using a flash drive for storage…you know like the one that comes with Dragon Quest?
@HSS: You CAN play those games on the WiiU, you just can’t download them to the WiiU, you’re limited to buying a disc (for the same price). Also, why aren’t you buying the 32GB console where you get a %rebate on online purchases AND have 28GB instead of 3 to store things if you really plan to buy alot of games online.
Also not really worried about drive compatibility as tons of USB HDDs work fine with the Wii, and that was something people had to hack the console to even support.
Oh Wii U, you glorious train-wreck, I look forward to the guaranteed backlash that’s going to happen after launch day.
Not to be a Nintendo apologist … but how’s this different than the Xbox which still sells a 4GB version for people who don’t care about downloading stuff?
Because that is an economy model for people who want it. I can buy a basic 360 and play pretty much the entire library.
I’d argue that it’s a bit odd in the sense that you can’t even fit Nintendo Land on the internal memory. Consider that most consoles asking $300 come with at least 100GB.
It’s unsurprisingly bad design on Nintendo’s part but at least they aren’t screwing everyone over with proprietary memory card bullshit.