GDC09: Nintendo updates Wii Shop Channel with 'SD Card Menu' [update]
by JC Fletcher 
{ Mar 25th 2009 at 12:40PM } 
Click to check out our video walkthrough!
At his GDC 2009 keynote, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata will announce, Apple-style, that a Wii Shop Channel update will be available to all. We ran over to the Wii and began the agonizing update process to discover -- an "SD Card Menu" ...? Yes, it would seem that the vaunted "storage solution" has arrived.
"Welcome to the SD Card Menu! Here, you can launch channels saved on SD Cards by temporarily utilizing the Wii System Memory." CONFIRMED. That's right, launch from SD.
If your system memory is full, you still have to delete stuff, but there's now a streamlined, automated process to do that from this new SD Card Menu. It will even choose stuff for you, if you want.
Update: The new Wii system update also adds support for SDHC cards up to 32 GB -- that's alotta Virtual Console games folks!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
KVN @ Mar 25th 2009 12:46PM
About damn time!!!!
Ghen @ Mar 25th 2009 3:30PM
too late. i bought an xbox last august because I forsaw more than 2gb of rock band / GH DLC
Switching cards just for one game is just stupidity, let alone switching between games.
Nice for people that stuck the Wii out, but too late for me.
skater587868 @ Apr 3rd 2009 5:42PM
i still think you should be able to save the games you BUY on your card and take them to some one elses house and be able to play them on there wii. Not save them on there but play them. We are buying them so i think it should be like any other game, it sucks you can only play them on your wii. and what happens if you wii breaks or gets stolen. how do you get the games back? can you?
il_duce620 @ Mar 25th 2009 12:47PM
Update fastly!! As I'm at work and won't get to check this out for another 4 hours...grrrrrr...
Dopple Boppler @ Mar 25th 2009 12:47PM
Hooray, I can launch Donkey Kong from the SD card instead of having to shuffle everything about. Welcome, feature that should have been included at launch.
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:49PM
Yes, but then it would have been 300 dollars, and we can't have that now, can we?
Daffybint @ Mar 25th 2009 2:57PM
I have just installed the update and tried to load Donkey Kong and my Wii crashes :( Same with Super Mario Brothers. Happens when copied to SD card or returned to Will system memory.
rov947 @ Mar 25th 2009 12:48PM
can't wait to see what the homebrew community does with this
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:49PM
I'm assuming things that make Nintendo regret doing this.
joeybeast @ Mar 25th 2009 2:00PM
I'm sure Nintendo has assessed the risk
GohanGVO @ Mar 25th 2009 12:49PM
SNAP.
RupeeClock @ Mar 25th 2009 12:50PM
Now if only they announce the Wii becoming SDHC compatible, eh?
James @ Mar 25th 2009 1:01PM
It's your lucky day.
Brian @ Mar 25th 2009 2:43PM
eh?
It is SDHC compatible. It's been so since it came out, just not software compatible until now.
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:50PM
I guess it's time to buy some more SD cards. Quick question, do other peoples cards work in the Wii or do I have to buy the Wii version?
Cosmo @ Mar 25th 2009 12:52PM
You can use any brand SD cards.
WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Mar 25th 2009 12:53PM
Any regular capacity SD card will work.
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:54PM
Good, because I'm not buying the Wii one, it costs too much in comparison.
lasersanchez @ Mar 25th 2009 12:58PM
No SDHC, just SD (if the above comment wasn't clear). 2GB max.
lasersanchez @ Mar 25th 2009 12:59PM
At least until this update hit. Holy jeez!
John Z @ Mar 25th 2009 12:51PM
Well, well. They pulled it off. Bravo. Time for me to double-check that all my channels are downloaded, and then to d/l World of Goo-- I have a promise to keep, after all.
mr mobius @ Mar 25th 2009 1:23PM
So do I.
I need points though before I can follow through.
Surlent @ Mar 25th 2009 12:53PM
Yeah, I'm excited to get home and try this out. I have so many VC
games and Wii Ware games saved to my SD card, because my SSBB and
Blast Works saves take up a ton of memory. This is the shit.
Josh @ Mar 25th 2009 12:53PM
Oh fuck yes, they did it correctly. The only single thing you have to worry about is if you have enough space on your Wii for one game, which is perfectly fine.
Josh @ Mar 25th 2009 1:00PM
No wait, I'm wrong. It just loads straight to RAM, so you could theoretically have 0 blocks left on your Wii and still be able to play games straight off the SD card.
The only difference is that there's going to be a longer initial load time for loading games off the SD card compared to loading games from the Wii's flash memory, but that's not Nintendo's fault; it's just a limitation of SD card technology.
Oh, and SDHC cards up to 32 GB are now supported, YES!
Good for me and my 8 GB microSD card + SD card adapter. ;o
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 1:02PM
Really, Because there are some people saying it's only regular SD cards.
Josh @ Mar 25th 2009 1:02PM
Oh wait, I'm wrong again:
"If your system memory is full, you still have to delete stuff, but there's now a streamlined, automated process to do that from this new SD card channel. It will even choose stuff for you, if you want."
OK, so you *do* still have to have some free flash memory on your Wii, but that's OK. Apparently the SD Card Channel facilitates this.
The loading times still remain for the same reasons, though.
Josh @ Mar 25th 2009 1:03PM
It's SDHC up to 32 GB for sure.
Josh @ Mar 25th 2009 1:07PM
The only thing I don't like is that you're limited to 20 pages of channels on the SD card, which equates to 240 games. Even if you have the capacity to store more games on your SD card than 240, you won't be allowed to.
But then again, the number of people who will have more than 240 games is extremely small, I'm sure.
And you could always use a second SD card if you need to store 240 more games, so I guess it's OK.
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 1:15PM
It's like memory cards, only with a higher storage capacity.
Josh @ Mar 25th 2009 1:17PM
Kind of.
GohanGVO @ Mar 25th 2009 12:53PM
From 1up:
Wii System 4.0 - at bottom of screen, there's an SD card icon that goes to a menu. Same 12-item-per-screen layout, but there are 20 screens per SD card. 240 games total.
9:52
Menu 4 can handle high-capacity cards -- support for 32GB cards (!)
9:53
Wii Shop Channel with now offer ability to download directly to SD card.
9:53
Thank god, I can finally redownload all my VC games. Can launch content directly from SD card.
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:55PM
YES! YEEEEEEEESSSSS!
Maximo @ Mar 25th 2009 12:58PM
THANK YOU NINTENDO FOR THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT. TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY BIG 2-5.
man that just my day. Looks like ill be buying more WiiWare ,and VC stuff
esposch @ Mar 26th 2009 4:08AM
Don't you mean "that accidentally my day"?
vdeogmer @ Mar 26th 2009 3:10PM
The whole thing?
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:55PM
According to 1up liveblog it can recognise up to 32GB cards. Nice.
Nigeria @ Mar 25th 2009 12:55PM
Does this mess with the Homebrew Channel?
Region Free is a far bigger draw for me than this SD Card Channel.
iofthestorm @ Mar 25th 2009 1:17PM
This is what I want to know as well. I guess we'll have to wait for an update from Team Twiizers. But eff, the 3.4 update I believe blocked bootmii from being completely useful, so this probably is along those lines as well. Meh, I don't even really use homebrew except for media center type stuff and I guess I'm working on my own homebrew projects, but this update makes me torn, since my Wii is actually close to full.
Zak Canard @ Mar 25th 2009 1:37PM
I'm afraid it does. System Update 4 prevents HBC from launching from either the menu or the SD Card, and you can't copy it to and from either. Team Twiizers are looking into it apparently, so if you want both you should hold off updating.
Zak Canard @ Mar 25th 2009 1:42PM
Scratch that, it looks like it only prevents new installs of HBC from installing, so if it's already on the menu and not on an SD card you may be in luck.
Phil @ Mar 26th 2009 11:54AM
As with other system updates it will not do anything to the HBC if you already have it installed, it'll just stop new peeps from installing it.
More hoops for Team Twiizers to jump thru... :-)
McWeen @ Mar 25th 2009 12:55PM
32BG cards! That is huge. I assume every Wiiware and virtual console game still wouldn't fill that.
Rob @ Mar 25th 2009 12:58PM
Yes! Now I can finally get some of the Virtual Console and Wiiware games I wanted for so long!
Genome4824 @ Mar 25th 2009 12:59PM
I found this at like 12:15 and i've been playing with it since
Emmiranda @ Mar 25th 2009 12:59PM
Haha... thanks for the update... and for showing a picture for proof... that you have installed the homebrew channel XP
It's a great thing, now... please add SDHC support (so we can use +2GB SD Cards)
Emmanuel Miranda @ Mar 25th 2009 1:01PM
Haha minutes later I refresh the live blogging and it says "...can use high capacity cards capable of holding up to 32GB right now..."
lasersanchez @ Mar 25th 2009 1:00PM
I can finally use my 8GB card I bought for the damn thing :)
Mr Khan @ Mar 25th 2009 1:02PM
Kickass. I'll pick it up this evening.
KeegdnaB @ Mar 25th 2009 1:04PM
I can confirm it didn't break my homebrew channel. Don't know if it will inhibit use of the twilight hack at all, but if it does, I'm sure they'll find a workaround within a week