| Mail |

You might also like: WoW Insider, Massively, and more

More Sites You Might Like

/ Register

Joystiq

Nintendo job posting hints at Wii USB devices

by Scott Jon Siegel on Jun 12th 2008 5:00AM

The two USB ports on the back of the Nintendo Wii don't get a whole lot of love, but that might be changing sometime in the near future. According to PC World, a recent posting on Nintendo's job board calls for a Software/Hardware Tester specializing in creating and executing "a test plan for Wii's USB devices."

We already know that Rock Band on the Wii will utilize a USB hub for its peripherals, but the job posting suggests even more USB devices might be enroute. These could include USB keyboards for future online games, or possibly even an eventual external storage solution (though Nintendo's recent disparaging comments on the matter make this unlikely).

[Via Engadget]

Source

Tags: nintendo, usb, Wii

Reader Comments (41)

"though Nintendo's recent disparaging comments on the matter make this unlikely" kind of like how Walt Mossbonk said we'd have the 3G iphone next month... then he said it was a lie and false... then it happened.

The Wii already supports usb keyboards.

True, but they could be working on their own Wii-branded keyboard. If such a product was made, likely it would be fully functionable with the Wii Menu (i.e. being able to hit Enter to exit a text entry field), instead of being used for just text entry.

They could be testing the music game USB devices, too. Who knows.

It's been a while since I used the keyboard, but I seem to recall being able to push CTRL and ENTER to leave the text input. I could be mistaken though...

Never tried that... I'll check it out, thanks.

(though Nintendo's recent disparaging comments on the matter make this unlikely).

Because one little guy who is the Nintendo of Europe Marketing Director speaks for all of Nintendo as a whole.

Iwata said at the begining of May that they were looking into a storage solution for the Wii.

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2008/05/01/iwata-were-looking-into-the-flash-memory-situation/

Anybody who was looking into keeping their job wouldn't say such a statement about the consumer, and I wouldn't be suprised if actions were taken about his comment already.

Bring on the WiiDD! Woo!

The WiiDD? Oh god, here comes to stupid pothead jokes.

I didn't even think of that, Nailio, as I found the idea of another DD device hilarious in itself. That, and I'm "boring." ;P

I didn't think of it either. Nailio must have pot on the brain.

"I didn't think of it either. Nailio must have pot on the brain".

Says a guy named: Toasty toaster man...

I'm not one to even dabble in that crap. If others want to use it, I'm not going to stop them, but I'm staying far away from anything like it. But my brother smokes alot.

I think we all know by now - they take their bloody time.

Pi pika pi!

meow.

32X add-on? N64 DD?

XBOX HD DVD Drive?

SNES CD Driv...

Oh wait

OMG FAMICOM DISK DRIVE!!!!

I think they're making USB powered Warios that snicker at you whenever you lose a match in Smash Bros.

It could be worse: Waluigi

I approve of both ideas.

Wa-ha-ha!!

Can I Haz Wii HDD plz!!

No.

I vote for a USB hard drive, but then again, I'm a nerd...

I dont care about any usb crap, focus on the vc games they have sucked for the last few months!!!!!

*shoves FaFaLo down some stairs*

Ignore him. We want a USB HDD.

*beats FaFaLo within an inch of his life*

We need fucking space!

*buries FaFaLo under a pile of PS3s sitting on shelves*
*No one will find him there for ages*

We need storage space before we can freely download more VC games.

* Stucks FaFaLo into a first gen 360 and turns it on *

the more storage you have the more games you can download and the better quality and features games will have

why do they need to look into a solution for more storage? Just activate the usb port to accept usb hdd and release a Wii branded USB 20GB hdd for $20. Non noobs can use a regular usb hdd. Is it fucking rocket science??

Piracy

That's what stopped them from doing that in the beginning. They've been fighting tooth and nail against storage solutions because if they let you run a VC game from the SD card, you'll just copy it on your PC and distribute it to the earth

My idea would be to distribute software keys that had to stay on the on-board memory, and would only be 1-2 blocks each, while the games themselves could go anywhere, but could only be run in correspondence with the console-bound key

I really don't understand the piracy argument.

The Wii Shop Channel downloads are all packed with DRM that locks them to the Wii they were downloaded off (even freebies).
And you can already backup Channels onto an SD card.

Why can't they make it so that if you try to play a Channel off an SD card, it checks to see if the Wii Number matches the DRM on the SD Channel? Sounds pretty simple to me...

*BPM: "I really don't understand the piracy argument."

Neither do most corporate executives, which is why they keep endorsing copy protection and DRM in the first place. You know, just to be on the safe side.

Considering a 2GB Wii-branded SD card costs twice as much as a generic brand ($26 vs. $11), it's highly unlikely a Wii-branded 20GB drive (if ever such a device gets made) would cost anything less than $50.

I would gladly pay $50 for a 20G HDD. Shit, I would probably pay more. I just want more space!

It was nintendo of europe who said the thing of the geeks and otakus, who cares about nintendo europe???

This is kinda sad on Nintendo's part if they are just now hiring someone for this position, I would like to think they are in the final stages of external memory...but apparently not :-(

The thing is, USB hard drive controllers and network adapters are largely standardized hardware. There's little need for USB specialists to test these devices, since they can be built from common, off-the-shelf parts. The only thing they really have to do is make modifications to the OEM's drivers so only specific, licensed devices will work.

I think Nintendo has more up their sleeve than just a hard drive. In fact, given that hard drives are not price flexible components, I doubt that it will happen. If Nintendo was really serious about fixing the storage issues, they would just patch the system's firmware so you didn't have to swap content in and out of internal memory. If Nintendo doesn't trust their DRM technology enough with memory cards, I don't think they would trust it with hard drives, either.

So, Nintendo adds USB ports to their system and they don't have a large enough staff to make USB accessories? Maybe they did, and the staff quit because they were bored?

Looks like a fairly ordinary job posting to me.

Sorry, you must be logged in to leave a comment.

Breaking News

Nintendo job posting hints at Wii USB devices

Reader Comments (41)

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 5:18AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 5:23AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 6:43AM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:29PM arex said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:57PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 5:40AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 5:48AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 6:36AM Nailio said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 6:42AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 7:02AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 8:19AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 3:43PM Nailio said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 7:18AM Ethan said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 7:45AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:40AM Ethan said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 8:50AM hey buddy said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:39AM mr nimblewick said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:24PM NO DOUBT GET LOUD said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:58PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 8:52AM mocax said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:36AM Greg2k said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:58PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:08AM Pojomofo said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 5:24PM xGearSecondx said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 10:50AM sorensilk said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 11:03AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 11:09AM Tez said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:03PM Vegeta has a ps3 said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:18PM mrmobius said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:01PM CJLopez said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:47PM RobAccomando said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:28PM Mr Khan said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 2:01PM BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 3:45AM BurntMeatloaf said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:47PM RobAccomando said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 4:45PM In A World said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 6:15PM cesaria said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 12:52PM CJLopez said

Posted: Jun 12th 2008 1:26PM msucokeboi said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 3:52AM BurntMeatloaf said

Posted: Jun 13th 2008 3:46AM BurntMeatloaf said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

Double Fine Kickstarter passes $1 million in under 24 hours, breaking yet another record

Featured Stories

Shank 2 review: Refined brutality

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier brings information warfare to the front

Rhythm Heaven Fever review: Crazy into you

The most popular postsin the last 7 days

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW

The most popular posts
in the last 7 days