MASS USB storage on the way?

[Reality's Fringe]

With many people complaining about the small size of the 512MB internal memory of Nintendo's Wii and the current lack of compatibility between the system and external USB storage devices, there appears to be good news on the horizon. An official Press Release has gone out from eSOL, Ltd, stating that its leading embedded middleware products, "PrFILE2" FAT file system and "PrUSB/Host" USB host stack, have been selected by Nintendo for use with the Wii console.

Both software products constitute fundamental functionalities in the Wii console - managing and transferring data and files with external media. In particular, PrFILE2 provides file management functions that read and write data from SD memory cards, as well as other media. PrUSB/Host functions are used in Wii, to provide USB host functions.

"I am very happy that we could take part in the development for Wii, a new game console from Nintendo. I believe that our products were selected because Nintendo highly-valued our long, successful history with many digital consumer products and high-reliability and functionality based on that. We will continue to provide superior products and technical services to strongly support developers in embedded software development."
- Nobuyuki Ueyama, Executive Vice President, Embedded Products Division at eSOL.

So could this finally be the answer we have all been looking for when it comes to downloading lots of Virtual Console games?

Stay tuned for further details...


http://www.cubed3.com/news/7212/1/Of...e_USB_for_Wii!

If you can load your VC games from them, I'm in.

[Corvin]

That's all it boils down to is being able to run them from something other than internal storage since the time it takes to download or transfer is about the same.

[Strell]

Nintendo.

Please fix the amount of time it takes to load stuff first, before you worry about external storage.

Then give me a way to connect up an external hard drive and...I dunno. Wii pr0n? Sure why not.

[Vinny]

http://www.cubed3.com/news/7212/1/Of...e_USB_for_Wii!

If you can load your VC games from them, I'm in.

I would rather that they just added a function to let us load games form a regular SD card or an external. I can only imagine the price this Nintendo branded USB storage device will be going by the rate of the Nintendo branded SD cards (the Sandisk ones).

Nintendo.

Please fix the amount of time it takes to load stuff first, before you worry about external storage.

Then give me a way to connect up an external hard drive and...I dunno. Wii pr0n? Sure why not.

I agree... everything in the Wii loads so slowly too slow.

[dallow]

So this is what was coming for the HARDCORE GAMER.

Mass storage is so unnecessary for this system.
I'd much rather load from the SD card.

[Scrubking]

Nintendo better not force on us a brand usb or HD drive when they can just rework the SD/USB interface to let us use our own devices. Why would I buy an overpriced HD when I can just pop in an SD card? More importantly they need to let us run our saves directly off the damn cards.

If Nintendo screws this up they will defintely lose my favor.

[Strell]

It would probably take a hacker about a day to release a work around.

[botticus]

This is about middleware to manage storage devices, it's not talking about hard drives and what not.

Just like you don't have to buy the Nintendo-branded SD cards, I highly doubt they'll restrict you to a Nintendo-branded USB hard drive.

[Scrubking]

It would probably take a hacker about a day to release a work around.

Another reason to love the mod community. :)

[gunm]

Kotaku today again reiterated the Wii mass storage/hard drive rumor that could be announced at E3. Citing a confirmed big "hardware" announcement that's been mentioned, but still under wraps.

On one hand, I'm excited and would probably enthusiastically buy the device if it weren't DRM-locked like the SD slot currently is.

If what Kotaku says is true and a hard drive-type device does come out to support games like SNK Neo Geo classics, then I would think the DRM has to change...anyway, that's one bit of news I'm looking forward to getting out of this year's show.

[dallow]

I agree with Dallow above from two months ago.

[Scrubking]

I really hope this doesn't happen.

[Strell]

I agree with Dallow above from two months ago.

Listen. I know you're stalking 3-4 girls at your work, ball-less to talk to any of them, but it takes you to a new level of pathetic to bump an old topic just to say "I agree with myself."

You're a trailblazer. Emo kids would kill for this sort of desperate self-realization, right after they wrote poems about how the birds are dying.

[VAD3R or Fro]

As long as I can plug in my USB flash drive into the back of the Wii and not buy something else then its all good.