Topic: Wii Purchases Aren't Forever! (Yahoo)

@Adam: you'd think they'd have something for the Wii like they do for the DS console family, where you can sit two consoles next to each other, transfer their online play data (games like MKDS, for example, all your stats and saved FCs and whatnot), and then get rid of the first one if you like. we can already do it with the DS/i, so why not the Wii?

What I have understood some people to say is that we link all our transferable games to Club Nintendo. For me, the only things that are linked to my Club Nintendo Account are about 7 Wii games, 3 DS games and my Classic Controller Pro. I have no connection with my Wii wotsoever, and so if people want that as the way to connect your games to another system, Nintendo needs to do something.

Well, TBD, there is more than one Wii in existence, and this method does not exist, so I don't know. Maybe they'll consider it worth enabling once a new console is released. I can only hope. I certainly don't care if the online is unplayable. I just want my stats -- not to mention I'd hate to have to play Subspace again just to get the characters back.

@Aviator: it's not your retail games or accessories we're talking about, but downloadables. Once you link your Wii or DSi Shop accounts with your Club Nintendo account, the Club Nintendo account knows what games you have downloaded and will provide you surveys to complete for eligible ones. I do think Club Nintendo could be a viable way to transfer account information across systems someday (as it keeps track of what you have downloaded once you've got everything linked up), all they have to do is tweak it a little and provide the System Update(s) necessary to get people to sign up and link up almost as soon as they've set up their console. :3

Sorry if I haven't been making this clear but NoAU has not linked any Wii's to my knowledge with the shops.

This doesn't work with DSiWare though. Hopefully this system can be extended to include that (don't see why not with a firmware update). I'd be happy with that solution for Wii too. This honestly seems like the easiest way to do it. Just transfer everything wirelessly. Once the transfer is done, everything is deleted on the old console, and the new one is set to go. Hopefully then they'll move to an account system like every other sane company has.

@Token: Adam was referring to retail Wii games, where if they have the ability for online play via wi-fi, you can't copy over your save file to SD and back it up -- Brawl is a huge worry for players considering the amount of time people have put into that game in order to unlock everything, and they stand to lose all of that if they have to send in their Wii for repair and Nintendo has to replace it, or if they switch systems and are able to copy over all of their other game save-files except for that one. I wasn't talking about downloadable games at that point. :3

I still think it would be the simplest (and possibly most secure) way to transfer games without some kind of account system, which most wii owners probably don't have (doubt a large percentage is linked to Club Nintendo).

As for Brawl, nobody will want to play that once they release the Wii2 version of SSB, so I don't consider it a priority over all my purchased games. It'd be awfully nice if Nintendo did think of something that could work in repair situations and such, but, you know, it took them like 2 - 2.5 years just to come up with the SD card solution in the first place, and it's still not present on the DSi, so I'm going to prioritize what I hopelessly hold my breath for.

I must say I´ve been fearing this. Will Nintendo have a solution for transfering Virtual Console games in the future? It could really go any direction.

@Token: If they were to make it a requirement that you have a CN account in order to download games, though, and made it so that you could sign up with CN via the console itself (as an option if you don't want to mess around on your computer), that'd make it much more feasible. I could see them doing something like that via System Update or once Wii2 rolls around.

i think the problem is more that CN was an afterthought in regions outside JP this gen... if it were something integrated into the console, it would've been a very useful tool in terms of allowing the user to change over all their Shop information. they could make it so that you have to connect to the Wii Shop with the original Wii in order to disable all the games you'd downloaded onto it before if they have to (in order to make absolutely sure you aren't just never-connecting-to-the-Shop-again on that Wii so that you can play those games forever)... that'd stop gamesharing in its tracks. and if the original Wii was no longer physically capable of connecting to the internet, they could work out those situations on a case-by-case basis.

Nintendo won't allow me to sign up with Club Nintendo. Why? Well, Nintendo of Europe thought it would be fun to leave Scandinavia out of the good stuff. Unless you live in UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany you always get the short end of what NoE has to offer. Not that NoE has very much to offer in the first place.

Sakurai isn't making another Smash Brothers, Token. If Nintendo continues the series, there's no guarantee that his successor will be competent enough to make a worthy sequel. I don't know why you assume everyone will want to replace Brawl, especially considering there are already many of the more dedicated players who don't even think Brawl a worthy replacement for Melee. I'm not trying to be so skeptical as to insist that it won't be made or it won't be good, but neither is guaranteed, so it is a pretty big assumption to say the sequel is coming and that "nobody" will play Brawl anymore.

Granted though, I was exaggerating when I said I'd go into mourning. If it happened, I'd shrug and get on with Subspace one last time with a sigh. It'd be sad to see my stats go, but I'm not so attached to any game that such a loss would bother me for more than a fleeting moment. If Nintendo can make a new system I'm interested in (i.e. not a Wii plus 3D glasses), the save files would be a minor issue, downloaded games a major issue. I will not ever upgrade if I can't keep my games. The VC was an age old dream realized for me, having all my favorite games (with one obvious and annoying omission) on one console, and I'm not about to let that go to have a third console next to my Wii and SNES.

Maybe I'm too simplisitic in my thinking or I don't understand the issue correctly, but why can't they make the downloads or saved data be transferable via an SD card but the download or saved data can only be in one place at one time? For example, I download a game to my wii. If I want to take it with me to a family member's house to use the game, I move it to an SD card and the game is then erased from my wii. Now it's on the SD card, and I can move it around to play on another wii. If I want, I can download it to the other wii (which could include a wii2 in the future), and it is erased from the SD card. Whenever data or a game is copied to or from an SD card, it is erased from the orginial source. That way, the downloaded games or the saved data function like regular wii dics.

Monster Hunter Tri is another major time investment that wont allow save back up. This is occuring on all platforms though not just Wii.

I thought that the Club Nintendo link was going to be for the multisystem owners, answer to all this. My brother alone has had 2 Wii failures and both times got new Wiis from Nintendo and only after sending him the new one, saying oh you can pay to send it back and we will put them on it.

The should check for dowloads/saves when they get it and transfer it then. It's a load of BS. It really makes me not put my money on the services like I do others. That may just be me though. Really bad experience with Nintendo on this very issue.

Damn dude, this didn't happen to me. They looked at my account info, and said that I haven't had any problem with my system, even though I've had since launch day, and they said, "well they won't be on your system, but you can go back to the Wii Shop Channel and download them again onto your system free of charge, even if we send you a new system". Hopefully this is correct... because I wouldn't have wanted to send in my system and lose over 100 USD worth of games*. Oh ya, and that video Aviator posted looked like it was based in a bada** store.

*EDIT: especially if I was given misleading information.

@CharlieRod.... nope the system I had with the $100 USD of games on it I sold after the years lack of Wii games with exception of Wii Fit (wich I bought and threw me over the edge P/Oed), Wii Music, etc none of wich I cared about and Third Parties werent putting anything out. It was my only new console at the time so I sold it for a PS3 to have new games to play. I bought a Black Wii few weeks back and of course cant get my Download Games as I could a PS3. I did sell the system though lol. The problems in the above comment were to my little brother, wich in fact prob made me more mad than had it been me cause I can easily afford to pay for games, he couldnt at the time. Unlike the new article on the front page making Nintendo out to be so perfect to kids, I know one they werent so friendly to!

This is why I don't see the Club Nintendo account as a viable solution. So long as Nintendo continues to operate on a regional basis, someone is going to get left out. Do you think I could have a Japanese Club Nintendo account? I guess you can lie about your address, but why jump through hoops for something as basic as this?

@sean.... aye long as you know Japanese and they. dont ask for photo ID. Lol.

I wish I could access the Japanese stores. I would invest in a Japanese Credit Card just for it, as their exclusive content seems like its staying there.

I understand the logic behind regions, but I really think it does more harm than good - especially to publishers/developers who have to jump through extra hoops just to get a European release for WiiWare/DSiWare and obviously if you live somewhere like Australasia which is a quasi-region you end up missing out on a lot of content or having to import your consoles and games.

Nintendo really could be more helpful in this regard and have a single shop with indicators for available languages on the Wii and DSi as well as region-free games. Neither of these would eliminate the market for localisation (especially for games originally released in a language other than English) and would eliminate a lot of the current grumbling.

There's a lot of things Nintendo could do better in their next console, but I won't hold my breath on them addressing any of them.

Lol I wouldn't hold your breath for too long that's for sure. Lol.