SD Card Channel Announced

You beat me to it, jhoff!


Here's the bit via IGN's live coverage of Iwata's GDC keynote address this morning:

Finally, talking about an answer to save more content on Wii. Presumably the SD card access. Bill Trinen from NOA takes the stage to show off "a menu." An SD card icon is now located on the bottom-left corner on the WIi Channel interface. Click on it and it'll take you to a Wii Channel area that scrolls 20 times over, allowing you to save up to 200 games. Wii System Menu 4 is the name of this update and it supports high capacity SD cards up to 32GB. You can now download content directly to an SD card now. And you can also launch content directly off the SD card. Sweet gods, thank you

So, it looks like this will allow Wii to use SDHC cards of up to 32GB as well as being more seamless.

Nice! Now, to buy a 32GB SDHC card......

Frickin' finally. When is it supposed to launch?

I can't read coverage at work, so the techier among you, please outline for me the reasons I should be unsatisfied with this solution. There must be SOME random, annoying limitation, right?

Mentioned in my previous post, but yes - looks like SDHC cards of up to 32GB will be useable. Wii got itself a "hard drive". Will be updating @ lunch today..

It is available RIGHT NOW, Mongo!

IGN reported the Wii Shop was down this morning "for maitenence" which coincided w/ GDC kicking off w/ Iwata's keynote address. Said downtime was loading the update to the system.

From what it looks like so far - it'll support SDHC cards up to 32GB. Wii Shop purchases can be DL-ed directly to SD. SD stored content can be accessed/played directly from the SD, apparently (or at least is treated in the same manner RB2/GH DLC is). Your Wii Channel menu will now have an SD card icon that can be accessed, allowing youto view in some sort of "subchannel" setup the data you have on the card.

Will do the update on mine @ lunch - will report anything I see.

Great news!

How much could you fit on a 4gb? Newegg has one for about $8 right now with free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820134807

So clarify for me--practically speaking, what effect will this have on playing games off SD vs off internal memory? Waiting while the game loads off the SD or something?

I know for certain that my unopened, $4 2GB card from Newegg will probably provide enough space for anything I ever download on my Wii throughout the entirety of its life. (I've had it since launch and haven't had to delete things to make room, ever.) But I know I won't be able to stop myself from spending more than I need to on a 32GB card and sticking it permanently in the Wii, just for peace of mind.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/965/965783p1.html

Link to IGN's live blog from GDC/Iwata show.

From the info there:

9:52 am......You can now download content directly to an SD card now. And you can also launch content directly off the SD card. Sweet gods, thank you!


9:54 a.m.: Loads Zelda II VC off an SD card. Loads quickly, seems pretty seamless. We approve.

Also announced & going live today is Virtual Console Arcade.

10:08 a.m.: Virtual Console Arcade announced. Download games like Space Harrier, Mappy, Druaga, Star Force, Emeraldia, and more. Much more. Space Invaders in the near future. Arcade Games available for download beginning today!

Yea, the only difference is there is a "slight" wait while the title loads. The update comes with the new Wii System Menu 4 available now...

"With Wii System Menu 4.0 we've made a number of improvements ... a single SD card can hold up to 240 titles."

"You're no longer limited to 2GB SD cards" and can use high capacity cards capable of holding up to 32GB right now. That's a lot of NES games (read: all of them). You can also download content straight to the Wii's SD card and run them straight off the card "with just a short loading time."

Guess no need to worry about filing up an SD card w/ RB/GH DLC...

You could get 80-90 or so RB2 tracks on a 2GB already. Guess Sandisk should forget those 2Gb Rock Band 2 cards & paint the logo on a 16-32GB SDHC instead?

"Lack of Storage" - scratch one complaint the haters like to make about Wii.

Okay, so is it me, or does this update seem completely awesome? Why would anyone even want a traditional hard drive then? A small wait to load up a big game doesn't sound like much of a negative to me and it sure as hell beats having a clunky external drive attachment. I haven't tried it out for myself yet obviously, but it seems like it'll be pretty seamless.

And arcade games? Really? Finally. I'm tired of XBLA lording their arcade-perfect downloadable games over us. Though I wonder if the service will ever progress past Mappy, Space Harrier and the like to stuff like Street Fighter II or (please god) the old X-Men, TMNT or Simpsons arcade games.

Hope to help confirm your feelings of complete awesomeness after lunch today.

Well then hurry up and ****ing eat your goddamn lunch then.

Also, as long as I'm ordering you to do things, I've been meaning to ask you to uh, stop overusing the quote function so much.

Gaplus(Galaga 3) + Space Harrier=bought!

I just want to hear someone confirm the original GB games available for download to the DSi... My pre-order depends on this. If it's not happening, I might just grab a DS Lite! GRRRRRR!

Here is a video walkthrough of the SD Card Channel. It took about 25 seconds to load the game (King of Fighters 94) they used. It's pretty slick.

does this mean that you can purchase wiiware games worry-free now? In other words, if you buy a game and put it on the sd card, you could in theory move the card and play the game on a different wii (assuming say, your original wii dies)?

I imagine downloadable games are still tied to your system/account. But (someone correct me if I'm wrong), in the event your Wii dies, can't you just call Nintendo and have them let you re-download all your WiiWare/VC games to your new Wii?

Brawl is 128. Madden 09 is 87 blocks. Online games like Kart, RB/GH, CoD, etc. all run in the 50-70 block range & look to be stuck in internal memory as before.

I did the update - SD icon takes you to the SD Channel menu. Idnetical layout to normal Wii Channel menu, save for dark background.

The currnet SD card in my Wii has 20+ RB2 tracks on it & nothing else. Those do not appear at all on the SD Channel. Then again, they only show as 1 block in the Data menu anyway - the actual track data takes up blocks, but can't be "seen".

Used the new Move function ot send MM9 to SD. Once there, I could boot it up from the SD Channel. In a few moments? MM9, ready to roll.

But with SDHC support up to 32GB, DL your WiiWare all day long, brother...

Curious to see what 32GB translates to in Block count. Anyone got a calculator handy?

The tutorial mentions that any data on your SD Channel is only playable on your Wii.


No, you can't apparently just take the SD card to another Wii & access the online/purchased data. This has been the case from day 1. But a Nintendo-serviced Wii generally will have that data carried over to the replacement.

What you CAN take with you on SD to another Wii is non-online game save data, pictures, and I have found, the one exception to the rule - Madden 09 save data. Guessing because EA does not use Nintendo's servers for it's online modes?

Holy sheet! About effing time. Good news for the 4GB card I bought for my portable DVD player that only reads SD cards up to 2GB, quick swap with the card in the Wii and both devices will be happier.


The only thing I can think of that would be more of a nitpick is having 200 channels to scroll through to find the one game you're looking for. But that wuoldn't be much differen then having 200 carts you'd have to flip through. Would have been nice if there was some categorization or auto sorting, say by console...

Actually, I don't think you have to physically get your Wii to Nintendo to transfer over WiiWare/VC stuff to a new Wii. Everything you download is tied to your Wii system number--the Shop Channel recognizes what you've downloaded before and lets you re-download as needed. If your Wii dies and you pick up a new one, I believe you can call Nintendo, tell them your old system number and your new number, and they will reassociate your old Wii's download history with your new Wii instead. So you can then fill your new Wii back up with whatever you downloaded on the old one for free.

Save data, like jwebb mentioned, you're on your own to back up.

I imagine you can shuffle the SD Channels just like in the Wii Channel menu - so you could sort 'em however you like.

Unrelated, but I was reading the ArsTechnica report on Iwata's address. Among the "we're kicking ass" claims (Wii has hit 50 million, DS 100 million) was the news that the current install base of the Balance Board has nearly surpassed that of the PS3.

Not a Sony slam, mind you - just kinda crazy to think about.

Good to know! Guess this is what they do if they swap out yours for a new/refurb in warranty/RMA claims?