The Wii’s storage problem has finally been acknowledged by Nintendo. After months of denying it, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime insists that Nintendo has a “sense of urgency” when it comes to solving the problem.
The problem being that Nintendo’s Wii only has so much storage space. Said space can only hold so many downloadable games from the Wii Shop Channel. Once the storage space is full, you must either delete the games (which you can then download later for free) or store them on an SD card, although you still have to delete the games and move the games over from the SD card to the Wii Channels Menu. You can’t simply access the games on the SD card and play them directly.
Speaking to MTV Multiplayer, Reggie had this exchange:
Multiplayer: One of the other things about hardware is that there’s been a lot of questions about the state of storage for the system. There was the retracted comment about “geeks and otaku” from the representative form Nintendo of Europe. But there are people who are downloading WiiWare games and finding that they are running out of room. There are channels in Mario Kart and Wii Fit that take up storage space. DLC coming for “Guitar Hero: World Tour” that’s going to have to be put on SD cards if you want to have a lot of music. Clearly there are a lot of reasons to provide extra storage. Are you guys planning on providing extra storage?
Fils-Aime: We have said publicly that we’re looking hard at the storage situation, that we’re working on a range of solutions. We have nothing to announce now. But certainly it’s an issue we are aware of and we’re working to find a solution and we will.
Multiplayer: Are you hearing this complaint mostly from — and let’s use a nicer comment than “geeks and otaku” — more from hardcore gamers than from your expanded blue ocean audience?
Fils-Aime: From an Americas-centric perspective, here is the reality we see. We have a consumer base who loves virtual console. We have a userbase who really is enjoying WiiWare content. So for us really our challenge really is how do we satisfy all these consumers who are loving all of the product we make available on a download basis? As we continue to have things, as you point out, like ‘Mario Kart’ that has its own channel when you’re playing from an Internet perspective, we’re just making this challenge tougher and tougher. So in our view this is becoming much more of a mainstream problem, which is why we have a sense of urgency to solve it.