Walkthrough: Wii System Menu 4.0's SD Card Channel

by David Hinkle { Mar 25th 2009 at 1:41PM }

Well folks, it's finally here, and many of you likely can't wait to run home and check out the new functionality. Above, you'll find a video walkthrough of the new SD Card Channel in action, and below is a slide-by-slide walkthrough, if you're anti-video. So, check out the new Wii update and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Gallery: Walkthrough: Wii System Menu 4.0's SD Menu update

Tags: sd-card, sd-card-channel, sd-card-menu, system-update, wii-system-menu-4.0

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

Mickey @ Mar 25th 2009 1:48PM

Not having enough system memory to launch a game isnt going to be an issue now though, seeing as how you can move ALL your games off of it :P

Grey Acumen @ Mar 25th 2009 2:30PM

It's funny. This is almost EXACTLY what my guess was when the rumors first started about the storage solution. The only difference was that I was expecting it to show up as a channel on the Wii menu, rather than getting it's own specific button on the menu.

I can't wait to see what the homebrew scene does to take advantage of these new features.

CJLopez @ Mar 25th 2009 1:49PM

MEGA ORGAAAAAAAASM CONFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL TIME NINTENDO!!!!!!!!

I don't care if this thing breaks up my backup launcher, its worth to lose all those games for this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bm @ Mar 25th 2009 8:27PM

....."backup" launcher, huh.

CJLopez @ Mar 26th 2009 11:06AM

Yeah, i use the backup launcher to test the new games and see if they are worth buying at launch price or wait for them to be on the bargain bin, or not buy them at all.

Thanks to it I have saved quite a good ammount of money on games that i would had buyed blindedfold.

lobaalfr @ Mar 25th 2009 1:52PM

hum... I was thinking that you could load up SD Cards with games and share them but I think the games are registered to your Wii... dang... haha

InFaMoUs1- @ Mar 25th 2009 1:54PM

can you still do this update if your on WiiBrew?

InFaMoUs1- @ Mar 25th 2009 1:55PM

By WiiBrew I meant the Twilight Hack.

Calvin @ Mar 25th 2009 2:48PM

well the first picture has the "Homebrew Channel" right above the new SD button, so I would assume so

lasersanchez @ Mar 25th 2009 3:22PM

wiibrew.org says it won't interfere unless you try running it off of the sd card or copying it back. As much as I want to update my console I think I'm going to wait and make sure.

nickux @ Mar 25th 2009 1:58PM

OK I am really happy about this and it's about time Nintendo release this function. But I'm curious why they designed it THIS way. To me- it would be a lot more streamlined if you could just view SD content from the main Wii Menu. But files on the SD card could have an icon indicating its location on the menu pane. Again- not complaining, just offering some feedback from a Wii owner.

Dreganfyre @ Mar 25th 2009 2:08PM

That's true... but it did seem to take a bit of time for the SD Menu to launch. I wouldn't necessarily want to wait for it to load every time I went to the Wii Menu. :)

David Hinkle @ Mar 25th 2009 2:20PM

Keep in mind though that it had to load a TON of content. I have almost every VC game, and a BUNCH of WiiWare games, so that may have been a factor.

Bissy Boy (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Mar 25th 2009 1:59PM

It's great they are finally offering some sort of a storage solution but aren't 32 Gb SDHC cards in the neighborhood of $60-$80? Again, its great they are finally offering something more than the paltry on board HDD space but a simple addition of allowing any USB HDD would have been a better choice. That way you could get more bang for your HDD buck. I guess it's a step in the right direction so thats good enough for geeks and otaku.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 25th 2009 2:05PM

Does it matter? Wii doesn't support over cards over 2GB.

Aero @ Mar 25th 2009 2:05PM

VC and Wiiware games take up so little space on the SD card that you don't need a 32GB card anyway.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 25th 2009 2:06PM

Oh. My bad.

Bissy Boy (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Mar 25th 2009 2:09PM

The point is that they could have done this in a more affordable way for their consumers.

samfish (is ready for MadWorld!) @ Mar 25th 2009 2:38PM

You can get a 16GB SD card for about $30 bucks. 8GB is about $15-$20.
Personally, I'd rather spend $30 on 16GBs that I'll probably never fill anyway than spend $90 on a USB HDD that's 4 times and size and will also never be filled to the brim.

DangerMouse @ Mar 25th 2009 2:41PM

32GB is more than plenty for now. Those games can't be that big. In a year or so, those 32GB cards will be cheap.

Grey Acumen @ Mar 25th 2009 2:43PM

I found 32GB for under $75, which is obviously outside of the price range I'm willing to spend, but if you drop down a few GB, you can find 16GB for under $28, and an 8GB would only run you less than $15. I found all of those at newegg.com and each of them had free (usually 3 day)shipping to boot.

I honestly can't see how you would need more than about 16GB really. If you actually NEED more than that, then you probably have so many pages of VC and Wiiware titles that you'd be able to sort through them faster by having a second 16GB or 8GB card that you simply switch out instead of trying to hunt through all the pages that a 32GB would take up.

Bissy Boy (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Mar 25th 2009 2:56PM

The difference is a $90 USB HDD will get you 160 GB's of space or even more depending on where you buy it and can be used on multiple devices. It's about consumer affordability more so than what is adequate for today. You have to think ahead with these types of decisions. It's not to say you couldn't get multi purpose use out of a 32 Gb SDHC card but it's more limited than having a USB storage device. It doesn't make sense to limit storage to an SD card IMO.

Dreganfyre @ Mar 25th 2009 3:03PM

The thing is, you can already fit anywhere between 50 and 800 games on a $5, 2GB card. An 8 GB card ($15, I guess?) brings that to 200 to 3200 games. You don't really need to think that far ahead about a $5 - $15 purchase...

Plus you don't have the thing taking up extra space beside your TV.

Vidikron @ Mar 25th 2009 3:16PM

I would be nice to have USB support in addition to this, but this solution would seem sufficient for the vast majority unless they start allowing Wii game demo downloads or something. 512MB was simply too small, but even 2 or 4 GB card is going to cover most people's VC and WiiWare purchases.

IMO, unless they start offering demos, this essentially closes the debate over the Wii storage issue.

Mr Khan @ Mar 25th 2009 3:25PM

My sentiments exactly, Vidikron

Bissy Boy (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Mar 25th 2009 8:06PM

Vidikron is correct. The thing is that I already have a grip of USB devices but if I need additional space I'll have to go out and buy an SD card. I'm just glad they finally decided to do something about the situation. That deserves some credit. It just seemsmore practical to allow the use of a pre-existing USB HDD. Not that big of a deal ...

CaptainProtonX @ Mar 25th 2009 2:00PM

I love that the HBC is still active on the Channel list.

Raven @ Mar 25th 2009 2:00PM

the sad part is, DSi implementation probably pushed the development of this channel more than just the Wii itself.

ramuji @ Mar 25th 2009 2:03PM

Updated, installed, and tested. Works as advertised. Niiiiiice. 3am, so going to bed.

Marty @ Mar 25th 2009 2:03PM

"anti-video" = at work. For me, at least.

David Hinkle @ Mar 25th 2009 2:21PM

That's what the gallery is for! Get your slide-by-slide walkthough on, friend!

Xoonaka @ Mar 25th 2009 2:05PM

Seems like it still has to copy the games to the hard drive to run them... not a deal breaker, but it would've been nice if it could just run from the SD card directly.

Mr Khan @ Mar 25th 2009 3:26PM

It takes like 8-10 seconds for me

Granted, i only have one game on there right now (Sin & Punishment, which i bought specifically to try this)

Moleculo @ Mar 25th 2009 2:06PM

Could you guys test and confirm whether games like RB2 or GHWT can read/write DLC from/to an SDHC card? There's some debate about whether this should work.

Cody @ Mar 25th 2009 2:29PM

Also, does this mean we can now view photos that are stored on SDHC cards in the Photo Channel?

KirbyMeister @ Mar 25th 2009 5:32PM

No.

I don't even own those games, I just know that it's impossible given the current situation. The game has exclusive access to the SD card and cannot be patched. The IOS which the game queries for info about installed content, again, cannot read the SD card while the game is using it. The game cannot be patched to change the interface so that the SD card is accessed through the IOS and the game uses that.

Mostly.

If Nintendo was clever, they could modify IOS to patch just the NSDK (which is statically linked into the game code) to use a new SD card interface. IOS controls /dev/di so they could pull this off, assuming that an NSDK patch is small enough that it could fit on the system memory. If this is done then the IOS could read the SD card and give said data to the game.

This, however, would be really hard. There are about 30-40 different versions of IOS (the Wii downgrades when you put in an old game) and who knows how many versions of NSDK that have to have patches written for. It took Nintendo a year to patch out the signing bug from all versions of IOS.

However, considering the amount of Wiis that will most likely suffer flash memory damage from excessive copying and re-copying of titles from the SD to the NAND, it might be worth it to at least have a mechanism for future games to allow patching and mark themselves as "SD-safe" so you can launch them from the SD. The downloadable titles are capable of being patched already.

So, to answer your question, don't count on it.

natureboy46 @ Mar 25th 2009 2:09PM

Finally! Sure they should've offered this at launch but it's here now and that's all that matters. Guess I might start buying VC/WiiWare games again. Haven't bought one in months as I got tired of moving and/or deleting games.

It works really well. Paper Mario loaded in less that 5 seconds. I had grave fears it would somehow work at the speed of the transfers.

Pimliconite @ Mar 25th 2009 2:09PM

Hopefully they can raise the maximum WiiWare size to something bigger than 40MB, maybe 200?

milan @ Mar 25th 2009 11:13PM

Hear hear!

SegaPleaseMakePanzerDragoonWii! @ Mar 26th 2009 10:43AM

My thoughts exactly!

LokeSTL @ Mar 25th 2009 2:13PM

Now, if I can actually pay once for a VC game and play it on both of the systems I own, I am down. Otherwise, I couldn't care less.

crashcarstar @ Mar 25th 2009 2:20PM

Does this break the Backup Launcher?

yoursker @ Mar 25th 2009 6:21PM

Has anyone tested an SDHC card with Rock Band 2 DLC yet?

KidSqueek @ Mar 25th 2009 2:30PM

I just bought a 2gb sd card not even a month ago. Good thing it was only $5 =)

motang @ Mar 25th 2009 2:31PM

Finally...it only took 2 and half years! Updating now.

Terry @ Mar 25th 2009 2:40PM

Exactly....Only 2 and a half years before, Nintendo thought it was worthy of them spending a little of their Billions of dollars to program a system update that magically makes SD cards bigger than 2GB compatible now. Yippee Nintendo....Though I am very glad about it. Thanks!!!

Pessimist signing off....

MechaBouncer @ Mar 25th 2009 2:41PM

When everyone said it had to copy to the "Wii's memory" I thought system RAM and not the internal flash RAM. Sometimes I wish people would specify what they mean more often. In any case, I'm glad to see they finally added SDHC support and that the Homebrew Channel was still in place. I just hope homebrew still works. I may still wait for BootMii before I update.

Mr Khan @ Mar 25th 2009 3:27PM

Never been a problem for me. I rarely see RAM referred to as Memory anymore.

MechaBouncer @ Mar 25th 2009 4:00PM

And yet that's always been a proper usage of it. Memory has traditionally meant system RAM. If someone says "flash" or "flash memory", I know they're talking about storage. "NAND" earns them extra points. However, just "memory" to me implies system RAM and always has. Then some people call hard drive space "memory" and are just plain wrong. It's annoying and can be misleading.