Ask Mr. Universal about his dedication to Wii's Virtual Console and you'll get a dose of glee and gloom at the same time. So happy that he gets to capture all of these lost games on one console; so sad that he has no room to store them all. Wii's infamous storage issues possibly trumps all of the complaints about the system (even beating the friend codes/online issues) with its 512 MB storage. Such a giant size in, say, 1986 but not now.
Nintendo of America President and Chief Operating Officer, Reginald Fils-Aime, has heard your cries. Listen further...
In an interview with MTV Multiplayer blog, Reggie acknowledges the storage crisis in response to direct questions on Nintendo's stance on the matter:
"We have said publicly that we’re looking hard at the storage situation, that we’re working on a range of solutions. We have nothing to announce now. But certainly it’s an issue we are aware of and we’re working to find a solution and we will."
He continues:
"From an Americas-centric perspective, here is the reality we see. We have a consumer base who loves virtual console. We have a userbase who really is enjoying WiiWare content. So for us really our challenge really is how do we satisfy all these consumers who are loving all of the product we make available on a download basis? As we continue to have things, as you point out, like ‘Mario Kart’ that has its own channel when you’re playing from an Internet perspective, we’re just making this challenge tougher and tougher. So in our view this is becoming much more of a mainstream problem, which is why we have a sense of urgency to solve it."
Certainly a better response than Nintendo of Europe senior marketing director Laurent Fischer's dismissive response about this problem being one of concern only to "geeks and otaku". But it's a problem that should have been seen much earlier on to be honest. There was no way for a system with only a 512 MB internal drive to do all the stuff it's doing with messages, photos, channels, and everything without an exponential increase in the ability to better store the material. Wii's design philosophy was to be simple and non-intrusive in a household setting so let's hope they have a form fitting design-friendly solution to this long-going problem.
Thanks to MTV Multiplayer.
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