But not in the form of an external hard drive

Jun 19, 2008 21:51 GMT  ·  By

Nintendo is really working on a solution to the storage issues that Nintendo Wii users are reporting, but apparently it is not preparing to deliver an external hard drive for the Wii. The same Laurent Fischer of Nintendo Europe that ignited a small controversy by calling all those wishing for more storage space "geeks and otaku" has now stated that "We're working on a solution."

However, Fischer's position on the exact nature of the solution is at odds with that expressed by Nintendo president Satory Iwata. He has stated that Nintendo is trying to come up with an external hardware solution to the fact that the Wii only features 512 MB of internal storage capacity. Despite that, the Nintendo Europe man is confident that "there's no plan to issue hardware."

He also went on to say "We definitely detect that they are serious and we know there is an issue in this, so it's something that we're working on," while talking to GamesIndustry.biz.

Apparently, the issue is important enough for the main development team in Japan that worked on the Nintendo Wii to be looking for solutions.

Because of the fact that Wii games usually run from the disk on which they came, space was never a problem in the early days of the Nintendo console. But the launch of downloadable games on the Virtual Console service, which allows gamers to re-experience titles from old Nintendo consoles, made it important for the Wii to efficiently use its internal memory. The May launch of Wiiware, which offers downloadable games created specifically for the Wii, further strained the already limited 512 MB of internal memory.

Nintendo advises users of the console to delete titles that they have downloaded and are not playing anymore, so that they can make room for newer games, saying that all games that have been paid for can at any time be downloaded again.