Harmonix: Wii needs hard drive for DLC

But, somehow...someway...this is a POSITIVE for the Big N eh Fernandos?

The WiiSports Machine is a rip-off and a joke. And little by little, inch by inch...the Wii's white dress is coming off and is slowly but surely revealing how truly UGLY and OLD she REALLY is.

Did a Wii murder your family and leave you for dead, leaving you on a quest for revenge?

If not, what do you care if the Wii succeeds or fails?

Because if the Wii succeeds like the PS2 did then videogame companies will not care about making more immersing and realistic or ORIGINAL experiences and we will have nothing except the KRAP that takes up 90% of the Wii's game library.

My idea of innovation is NOT slapping a new coat of paint on an old unsuccessful console, and including a different input device.

If Nintendo had come out with the Wii back in 2001, I would consider it a viable gaming platform. And the PS2 would not have had near the amount of success that it did.

Instead, Nintendo spends almost no money on RD with the Wii and somehow, even though Nintendo themselves said that they are not competing with Sony or Microsoft, the Wii gets the same treatment as a REAL now-gen home console.

"Because if the Wii succeeds like the PS2 did then videogame companies will not care about making more immersing and realistic or ORIGINAL experiences and we will have nothing except the KRAP that takes up 90% of the Wii's game library."

Of course! I want original, non-franchise games like Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3! Or hey, lets play some more Rainbow Six Vegas 2...or was that Rainbow Six Vegas 1? I can't really tell the difference.

But heaven forbid games like Mario Galaxy, Zack and Wiki, Trauma Center, No More Heroes, De Blob, and so offer original, fun games with a unique way of controlling them. No sir!

This statement of sarcasm comes with the fact that I acknowledge that yes, Wii has shovel ware and no hard drive and that yes, there are unique and fun experiences on 360/PS3 but I chose to respond in this manner because claiming there isn't a shred of originality on the Wii is ridiculous. Don't blame the console, blame the developers that are creating quick cash cows based on the Wii's family oriented success.

TheDave,

My rip-off for $500 gives me...
60GB HDD...thats 59.5 MORE GB of storage (actually it is 54.5 since 5GB is not accessible) than the WSM
Blu-ray player (upgradable and fastest loading with best the best chip for even better looking BD movies than stand alones (at least for now)
Cell chip
PS2 chip EE/GS
PSone emulator
Web browser (continually updated for faster surfing and wider support)
TREE card readers
Wifi...wadya know, the WSM has this too
Store and play back digital fotos in different styles
Store and play back music
Store and play back movies
Play upscaled DVD's
F@H
Install Linux or other OS
Plays games that do not look like KRAP
PSN games that are NEW
Home (by July)
Remote play with PSP

Yeah, you are right, I GOT RIPPED OFF.

ummn,

I was not FORCED to buy a PS3. I WANTED to buy a PS3...so I did.
This is not 1990. I LIKE that the PS3 does SO MUCH MORE aside from playing games. I LIKE my EC to be a clutter free as possible without wires or unnecessary equipment.

Even if you NEVER play a PS3 game or any game on the PS3, I still say it is worth the money for all of the other things it can do and WILL do.

Shall I get you guys a ruler?

Well as soon as I care about a single one of those listed features, which is to say never, I'll get ripped off buying a PS3. For the moment I'm happy with my Wii, even if it'll have a crappy version of Rock Band, and wishing I had a 360.

"I can't help you then if you really wanted all that junk along with your video game system. Good for you, just the kind of sucker Sony is looking for."


How are you a sucker if you wanted it? I actually did want a Blu-ray player anyway, so the PS3 was actually a very good value.

Lets see, should I

A. Get suckered into buying a GameCube in a different box with under utilized waggle controller/pointer for $150 MORE than the GameCube by falling into the FAD/Hype?

OR

B. Buy an all in one machine that will still be a valuable part of my entertainment experience in 5 years?

Yeah.....REAL tough choice there.

Not to mention Sony is known for NEW (keyword here) NEW IP's and BIG NAME franchises that get better and better with each console generation.

Where as Nintendo is known for the SAME franchises with VERY LITTLE new content that stay the same over and over.

With each passing moment you make yourself MORE Nintendo's SLAVE.

lol oh wow


The biggest joke, killjebus, is you. And ironically, you're the only one who doesn't get it. ;)

Actually bm, he is right and the jokes on you.

He's not right, he's a fanboy geek who wasted half a grand on a second PC except without as many good games or features, and now needs to make at least a hundred internet comments per day bitching like a preteen at some other console to make himself feel better about his bad decision, or else he'll cry himself to sleep at night. ;)

Well I own all three consoles. Each console has its reason for owning it. Mine go along the lines of this:

Xbox360 - Overall "adult gaming experience"

Much better game library atm
Has better online gaming
Has better online store as far as movies and
original content go

Wii - Fun gaming experience with friends/virtual
console

Great virtual console for the older gamers
Excellent "family" machine
Cheap

PS3 - Blu ray/dvd player

If you are in the market for a cheaper bluray
player, this were it is at.
Sad library of games atm
Crap online gaming and store
Biggest hope here is that with Sony winning the
HD war they will again focus on what has made
them so much bigger...the gaming community
Incredible possibilities if Sony would just
start doing something...like making games for
the damn thing!

"They haven't listened to the players"

They have...Nintendo is well known for their simplicity, a HDD would not only confuse many people, but it would also increase the price of the console (if to be made standard)...

I'm sure making an optional hard drive wouldn't confuse consumers. Most people understand what hard drives are now and they can make it easy to hook up and use - why not pursue this option? It's not like hard drives will ruin their image of simplicity. Nintendo could sell it at a fairly cheap price (hell they could sell it at a horrible price point and people would still pick it up) and it would make people buy more VC games and WiiWare titles...

I cannot imagine why they haven't figured this out yet.

You will see one when a nintendo game needs one.

Why do you think Nintendo would bother with an add-on HDD? If you have STILL not figured it out....NINTENDO does not CARE about the gamer. They only care about soccermoms and 12 year old Billy and old folks homes.

This Joke of a machine is STILL selling like gossip in a church to the Lemmings. (masses) Sure they would please the hardcore Nintendo faithful if they did sell a HDD, but why should they? They are making their money off the Lemmings and will continue to do so till this FAD dies out by early 2009.

Matt hit the nail on the head.

Noshino ---
Granted, it's been joked that Nintendo(specifically the Wii)demographic are either youth or elderly gamers; but admittedly with the simplified angle of its hardware and gaming thus far... it's no wonder that it would confuse a certain, somewhat significant lot of those who purchased it.

Though I'm not holding my breath for it because Nintendo isn't known for this sort of tactic --- it WOULD be nice if Nintendo either released the console with a much larger HDD; or at least one that had a simplified way of increasing HDD space without using the Secure Digital(SD)memory card port. Or better yet, some sort of USB add-on for the system that would work as an external, protected, and expanded memory source for gamers to use and for companies to retain DRM of their media. I had suggested early in the Wii's console life to Nintendo via mail that they could possibly do this by having a "vertical snap on, backward L-shape USB attachment with cooling mini fan/vents" that would connect to the back & bottom of the unit(if the Wii was set vertically upright as normal)and act as an external HDD. It could either have the HDD within this add-on, or act as a reader for specialized memory cards(a la GCN's memory cards).

Or even better, if it were made to rest underneath/adjacent to the side of the Wii where the 4 grip stands are(i.e., when the Wii is set up horizontally flat); they could be similar to the PS3 and have a swap ready SATA drive for the system for increased storage. Since Nintendo's so "gosh-darn family friendly", they could even customize the SATA drive entry to be durably safe both in interface & hardware loading as well... compared to the PS3's direct way of simply opening the side tab, unscrewing the lock, and pulling out/inserting in the drive.

Pipe dreamin' though. Nintendo won't lift a finger on it, and Harmonix is just throwing comments like this out for laughs. Knowing either, they'll settle on just releasing some kind of expansion disc like that damnable GH:ROCKS THE 80s or whatever; and forget about bitchery of expanding the HDD.

@CK
Optional hard drives would cause a bigger fuss than making hard drives standard. Because if some games like Rock Band uses the hard drive, people without a hard drive would not get the same benefits as the others. This would cause people to check to see if their games needed a hard drive before they purchased it. Just like how you can't play Burnout online without a hard drive. And then you would get weird phone calls from your Grandma asking "What's a hard drive?"

@kbomb1upc:
I still don't think it would be that confusing. Obviously playing Rock Band DLC should be optional, like the hard drive. Playing Burnout Online is optional, like the hard drive. I don't think it would be too hard for someone to play a game and when they try to download stuff - a warning comes up - "Hard Drive Needed." It's not like Wii Sports would be utilizing the hard drive. 99% of the games that would use the hard drive are geared towards the younger kids anyways. And I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to tell your grandma to get a hard drive if you don't have one already. That's not a tough conversation.

ck ---

No offense, but you'd be surprised at some of the trouble people have with what you would think are normal, simple tasks on electronics. Some are either intimidated, wary of breaking the device, or just unwilling to learn. Having worked technical support in the past; I've learned that even the most simple diagrams and instructions can cause a world of headache(i.e., a multiple hour long troubleshooting effort to teach someone the "evils" of haphazardly deleting things).
As aforementioned... given Nintendo's main sales demographic, they're going to have to tread carefully if they actually get off their ass and opt to increase the Wii's HDD space via external means. I personally doubt they'll bother at all.

ck,

just like FOXHOUND stated, you would be surprised...

I have worked at support and sales department, and there have been occasions in which despite having a huge "SAMPLE PRICE" notice on top the customers think that it is the regular price, or like customers buying the online version of an antivirus yet they thought they were getting the CD version...

"It's not like hard drives will ruin their image of simplicity."

yes it will, for something to be "simple" on today's society, it has to come as an standard and not require much effort.

The fact that it didn't come with the Wii at launch confuses people, and not only that, it would also piss off people because once someone explains them what's going on they'll feel that they have been ripped off...yes, I know that that sounds stupid, but if you have worked on the sales department, then you would see that sadly it is true...

"Every day Nintendo stalls on this simple solution, they lose money."



Sorry, but that sentence sounded hilarious.

@CK
Noshino and Foxhound pretty much summed up my point. I worked in the IT department for computer installs at my college and you wouldn't believe how dumb smart-people can be when it comes to computers. While I was trying to installs an old monitor in a professor’s office, he came in and told me to stop because he said that we couldn't take his monitor because he had all his files on them. He thought that just because you see the files on your monitor that the files are actually on the monitor. And if Nintendo decide to add a hard drive there will be a lot more "duh" moments like that.

"There, we finally gave you guys a hard drive. Wait, what do you mean 5 GBs isn't enough?...WHY CAN'T WE WIN???"

According to IGN's Matt C, they DO have one on the horizon, he has not said it outright, but in a number of podcasts he has said a lot to that effect in a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" sort of way

But Halo DS says to take that with a grain of salt

GH3 DLC doesn't exist on Wii.

GH3 on the Wii has DLC just like it has Dolby Pro-Logic II. They say they're gonna get it to me, but I haven't seen it yet!

My guess is that they're finding out the same thing as Harmonix, but not coming out and saying it.

GHIII DLC barely exist on any platform...

That's why I got rid of my Wii. It was cool at first, but then, it got old. I'll pick one up after they drop the price, whenever that is. There are only a few games I want to play that are out now but the 360 definitely got played much more and I couldn't justify keeping my Wii. Now it's being enjoyed by a family of 4 daily instead of a being a little white box that flashed blue every now and then.

XanthouS ---
"Come on guys, it's just like VC titles. If you want more than a few DLC tracks it's quite easy to do:
1) Play the DLC song you want
2) Delete the song from the system
3) Download the next song you want to play
4) Install the song
5) Repeat as desired"

...see, that's the problem in itself. Gamers SHOULDN'T have to do that though. And it's not being nit-picky to speak out against this annoying issue(not that you personally said so; but others have). I own a Wii myself with a bunch of VC games, but I had to stop after FATAL FURY was released because I'm running so low on space due to the VC saves, Wii GameSaves, and the various Wii channels I use.

Yes, I do play a variety of those on a daily basis, which is why I don't delete/re-upload constantly from my 2GB SD card. Having said that, if HARMONIX eventually opts to have DLC via Wii Shop Channel D/L; there won't be room for it. Even if I didn't have VC games or extra channels, as the Joystiq article mentioned, it'd fill remarkably fast with all the songs I like that they've released thus far. It would get waaaay too tedious to just delete/re-download songs; which most likely would have to be done from the Wii menu and not the game itself... unless Harmonix does an in-game shop download/deletion like PS3 or X360; but yes, that would also require some kind of Shop Channel/DLC effort.

Trust me on this ... starting with the latter part of the year, Wii owners will start complaining more and more to the public media(sites like this, blogs, talkbacks, et al)about the issue of limited memory space as VC downloads, new games, and even new channels are trickled out.

Fox,

I should have laid my sarcasm on a little thicker, I apologize.

I was pointing out Nintendo's lame "work-around" for consumers who want to download more than 512MB worth of DLC/VC to their Wii. As you mentioned, it's a terrible system and something needs to be done.

LoL No worries, man. :]

I did literally choke though in initially seeing the steps you mentioned - it hit close to home on this end because of all my VC downloads.

Yeah, I might have to agree with you on this one. How hard is it to see how successful things like Xbox Live is until you incorporate that same vision into your console? It seems like Nintendo, as usual, is too stubborn to let go of their original ideas and goals and embrace what the norm.

I love what they've done so far, but it seems to me they keep shying away from what we regular gamers want.

And instead, Wii games have a "Broken now, broken always" mentality.

Wouldn't Activision have saved quite a bit of gamer's time, and their money if they could've patched GH3 Wii instead of remanufacturing discs, shipping, etc.?

No I totally agree.. Considering we agree on this point we should go play some Smash Bros online with each other. Wait....