The moment people will stop complaining about Nintendo's Wii lack of storage space might be closer than expected, since a job posting and some official statements from Nintendo suggest that USB devices might be on their way to the beloved casual console. And that could be the only solution for the problem since it is just too late for Nintendo to implement hard disk drives to the console.

However, the job opening, as posted on the official Nintendo website and spotted by PC World magazine, is for a "Software/Hardware Tester" that can create and execute a "test plan for Wii's USB devices." Nintendo has yet to publicly announce any USB devices for Wii, although the console supports the protocol.

It would still not mean too much since it was proved in the past that job listings have absolutely nothing to do with what people might be expecting, but a customer service representative from Nintendo of America had a little chat with website gamesindustry.biz and the discussion really proves that the company might be working on implementing some sort of USB device. The rep first gave the usual "we have no plans at the moment" statement, but continued to say, "If we announce plans in the future for an external storage device - such as a USB drive or an external hard drive - or a way to save to, or transfer data from, an SD Card, we'll be sure to post this information to our website".

And it is indeed a bit strange to hear talks about USB devices from so many directions - the company must be cooking something, but it is probably not sure yet about the flavor and is waiting a bit more to be able to give us the whole list of details.
One thing is sure, though: the 512 MB of internal memory offered by the Nintendo Wii are not enough, not even for a casual gaming console. The same goes for Nintendo's so called solution: delete the game when the memory is full and re-download it for free when more disk space is available.