This update vastly improves the time taken to transfer WiiWare or Virtual Console games to a SD card. Some have said it is now around 5x faster with a 320 block game such as World of Goo taking around 20 – 30 seconds to transfer (depending on what brand your SD card is).
Transferring back to the Wii was pretty speedy to begin with, it is hard to say if it is now any quicker. Maybe with the next update Nintendo will add one-click functions to transfer games from the main Wii interface. If this is the case then we might forgive them for not yet releasing a HDD solution.
So one step closer to a storage solution and another step taken to thwart fans of the homebrew channel!
Comments 68
Cool, this will help out a lot, hopefully we'll be able to play games from the SD card soon.
Great! although it's still annoying to keep deleting and transferring big VC and WiiWare from the SD card. Now if only there was an update for 60hz support on all VC games.
It is annoying, but luckily for me, I don't play the big games very much, so I just have them on my SD card for now. Mario Kart 64 isn't as cool as I remember it being on the Nintendo 64, and I haven't played F-Zero X that much. I will give them a second look once we can play games from the SD card itself.
Comeon Ninty, just let us play games off the card!
I have about 4 TurboDuo games, one NEO GEO and 4 N64 games that i can barely play much since i keep swaping just to keep them on my Wii menu. Anyway i am trying to complete Ys 1 & 2 just to make space on my Wii.
What amazes me is that I thought something like this would happen in the spring with the "Save to SD" update. Glad to see it now!
When we can play straight from the SD card, I will probably buy more WiiWare games too, like Bomberman and Space Invaders. It seems like WiiWare games take up a ton of space. I keep Dr. Mario and Tetris Party on my Wii menu, but Midnight Pool and Helix are resting on the SD card for now.
I installed this update yesterday, and tested the transfer speeds for myself. A 320-block game takes about 35 seconds to copy to SD for me, instead of 3 minutes like it used to. Pretty sweet! It's dumb how Nintendo just said that the update offers “improved functionality” for the system overall without stating this specifically. They know it's a big deal, but they still don't treat it as such. How did people find out about this so fast anyway? I wouldn't have known if I didn't hear it from a guy over on WiiWare World yesterday...
Haha wow, I had no idea that's what the update did. Well, now I can re-download all the games I've had to delete from my wii and just store them on my SD card
@Stuffgamer1--I've gotten messages from Nintendo on my Wii about updates before. I didn't get one this time, unless it came today.
"Comeon Ninty, just let us play games off the card!"
Patience, young one. I see this update as the first (major) step towards allowing us to play games directly from the card, which would basically eliminate their entire storage problem. It shouldn't be too hard using these improved transfer speeds to just add a channel that lists the games on your SD card, lets you select one, does a temporary transfer, and loads up the game. Then you could just store most/all of your games on the card and launch them directly from there.
Hopefully we won't have too much longer to wait, but Nintendo did state that they were shooting for a solution by Spring, so it might be a few more months.
This does not block the HBC itself, just the TP hack. So it is not "another step taken to thwart fans of the homebrew channel" (that was the IOS update on October the 23 which suffice to say failed yet again, miserably). It just means that new adoptors can't yet use homebrew, until Twiizers release the new exploit (which does exist).
@Muzer--What is the homebrew channel?
If we're tlaking about the update features don't forget the USB keyboard support in Mii Channel and Enhanced parental controls
But yeah I've seen the video evidence of 300 blocks being transfered from the Wii in 30 seconds. I'm just as interested in the transfer back to Wii if thats improved. If its about 10-15 seconds I'd almost contemplate having about 500 blocks always free on the system and just copying and deling after paly.
The sadest thing is Nintendo still can't tell us what updates do. The message board e-mail in America says two things I mentioned and "system functions have been improved." without going into the detail people actually care about. The UK update doesn't speicify anything...not even the bit about the updated user agreement (I don't think the changes are legal in Europe).
It going to be even worse if the potential automatic updates the now policy allows are utilised...
@LinktotheFuture: http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Main_Page
That should answer all you need to know.
I'm not sure I get the Homebrew channel. Is the only thing you can do with it is play DVDs? I have a DVD player, so this is no interest to me.
Yay for USB keyboard support (I have to see if it works in Animal Crossing City Folks too). And faster upload/download times to SD card can't hurt. Another step towards an external drive solution! Otakus rejoice!
As for the updates not being clear as to what they do, jailbroken and hacked Wii users as well as nervous legit users should always wait and see what Update Lemmings and Guinea Pigs (like me ) have to say before updating.
Its a start now let us play games off the sd cards.
Hopefully this will lead the way to us Wii users being able to download all the available songs for Guitar Hero World Tour. Right now, we can't download the Jimi Hendrix 3 pack because the Wii version only lets you download one song at a time, and the Jimi Hendrix songs are only available in a 3 pack. Personally I think this really sucks.
Yay for USB keyboard support (I have to see if it works in Animal Crossing City Folks too)
It shouldve worked with AC before this update. The only channel to get the added USB support from this was the Mii Channel because well...all the other Channels already had it!
Thats good, thought it was just one of those updates they are doing now to get rid of any random files.
But this update kills piracy!
But this update kills piracy!
Yes, USB keyboards worth with City Folk. I've sure been playing enough of it to know!
Starwolf_UK is right about the messages. While Nintendo will tell you that there's an update, they won't say that it makes SD transfers go faster. None of the big three tell you what the update does when you install it, though. Sony and Microsoft just tend to have that info on web sites. Sony takes a day or two to update, while Microsoft tells you everything in advance. You'd think Nintendo could replicate ONE of these methods instead of being vague...but I think they don't want to get too technical with their casual customers. Yes, it's a dumb reason to keep us in the dark, but that's exactly why I think it's the one Nintendo is using.
@Tony: Good answer!
@Stuffgamer1--I've never played any Animal Crossing game, is there any game you can compare it to, or is it in a category by itself?
@LinktotheFuture: That's a tough question. It kind of is a category unto itself, really. You live this happy-go-lucky life where for some strange reason, you are the only human (though a uniquely stylized one) in a world full of anthropomorphic animals. You move to a new town at the start of the game, and need to buy a house (for which you go into debt) and meet the neighbors. You then start paying your debt off, earning money (known as Bells) by selling various things to the shopkeeper (bugs and fish if you've bought a net and a rod, or just fruit and seashells). You can wander around talking to your neighbors, catching creatures to put in the town museum (which starts exibitless and you have to donate everything they display, leading to a collect them all mentality that I find to be the most driving force in the game), or just goof off. You can even play online now, and talk with your friends while doing so using a WiiSpeak (which works a lot better than you might've thought; I'm impressed!)!
So basically, it's mindless fun with a touch of goals thrown in for us hardcore folk. I hope all that helped. It's really nothing you couldn't have found out by reading a review or something, but it helps me brush up my salesmanship skills.
Looks like we are one step closer to playing games from our SD cards.
@ Link to the future
Stuff gamer provided good detail to Animal Crossing. It really considered a communication game. I call it the perfect "chill out" game because of its laid back atmosphere and witty humor.
@Stuffgamer1 and Tony--Thanks for the info. Based on your descriptions, I will have to get it when some money comes my way.
I have a Kodak 1GB card that came with my camera a few months back and it took 45sec to do the 40MB in size Sin and Punishment N64 file. That's pretty fast going from Wii to the card, and before it would take I think around 3-5min to do it. I have less gripes now about the Wii storage capacity for certain, other than the size cap games have in general which keep a few gems out.
@Kultist - A Wii update won't affect disk games. If City Folk didn't have USB keyboard support to begin with, it won't now. I still need to get AC, but I don't have any money...
Thats good news concerning SD cards. Nintendo is finally dealing with the issues that could potentially hold the wii back. The fact that they never considered storage an issue before this really suggests to me that they never expected the success of Virtual Console, let alone WiiWare.
After playing alot of Xbox360, i am back on my wii again!
Nice news about til SD solution, I am a big fan of VC games.
I just bought myself a new Wii, is there anyway, i can download the games again? i mean the games that i had payed for once? Or does it only work on my old wii?
I dont like the grafiks as much as i used to, and i have herd that games will look much niseer with a componentcable HDTV480P.
(Games like, No more Heroes and Bettalion Wars2?
Do I have to bye the original cabel, or is the cheaper copy products allright?
Can i still play VC games? or do i have to chance to the old cabels, when i want to go old school?
See ya.
@Cengomania--I think you are going to have to pay to download your games again, but you can ask Nintendo Support staff, maybe there is a way to get them transfered to your new Wii. You can play the VC games with the component cables, they look great. I have the official component cables, but I am sure anyone would work. Hope this helps.
Nice, hopefully it will improve even more by the end of at least next March.
...really? If that's the case, I don't need a storage solution, this works. It's not the most perfect thing, but it certainly is great.
CENGO, does your old Wii still work at all?
hmm.. too little, too late. maybe nintendo is taking the 'right' direction by stalling on so many things, but the maybe the best direction has more to do with communication skills + r&d than cheap tactic.. VC:bored, Wiiware:singular, with few exceptions WiiMusic: personally, disappointing.. not sure of the importance of vgs anymore lol convince us!
Hey LinktotheFuture, thanks for the info, i am off bying the cable then ;
)Hello Bass X0, unfortunantley i sold my old wii, just by the time halo3 got realisd, played xbox until now, but i just missed wii and vc games so much. My wife wanted to play sims, try wii fit, and other wii games, and we bought one again ;)
I am crazy about No more heroes, cool humor, star wars ripoff, ahhhh hell yeah, any more games like that???
Cengomania X,
Is AMIGA games cummin on VC?
If you sold your Wii, you sold your VC games along with it. Nintendo won't give you free games because you used to own them at some point, then sold them. So no, you'll have to rebuy them.
Yeah, unfortunately, everything Adamant just said is clearly laid out in Nintendo's user agreement. Sorry, CENGOMANIA.
I cant wait for SD card VC game support, how many times do they expect me to clean out my frigifrator? I'm not my damn maid.
Yes, I'm still waiting to be able to choose from a full channel listing's of games. I've owned my Wii since almost near launch, and the memory has prevented me from getting much into the third of the four pages (by two or three channels). Granted, I'm sure I could do better if I had exclusively VC games instead of some of the WiiWare games I have.
Still, this be a nice update.
I don't think you can play a N64 game from the SD card, it's too big!
But NES, C64, SMS, SMD, T16 and SNES could be possible!
Fantastic firmware update. Many thanks, Nintendo! I love the improved transfer times.
Nintendo won't give you free games because you used to own them at some point, then sold them.
There was that one guy with about 200 Wii Shop purchases who got his hourse broken into and a total of $50,000 of electronics stolen. He bought a new Wii and talked to Nintendo about it and got the data tranfered over...then again did I mention, about 200 Wii Shop purchases?
Maybe Nintendo also felt sorry about him having his house burgeled. I guess to get free VC games you really need to convince Nintendo with your wallet.
@MrLopez--If we aren't able to play N64 and WiiWare games from an SD card, then everyone is going to be seriously pissed off, myself included.
Better than before, but still not the best solution.
The best would be if i can see all of my VC- and WiiWare-Games as a channel on the main menu, no matter where they are, even if i have to wait for a transfer in the background.
@ MrLopez: A stream functionality could be an eventual solution for the bigger data of N64 and WiiWare games.
@Cengomania--Hope you got your component cables and are enjoying them. I love mine.
I have yet to transfer anything to my SD card sinse the update but that's not my biggest issue with it anyway. I have well over 80 VC and WW games stored on my card and whenever I click into the channels menu in the options to move around some games, it seems to take a long time (about 8 to 10 seconds) to show me what channels are currently on my main page. I'm guessing it's because I have so much stuff on the card. I was hoping the update might fix that but it didn't seem to change. Anyone else have that problem?
@Rapadash6--I have about 30 VC games on my SD card, and it is a little slow for me too. Hopefully they will speed that up in a future update. One step at a time I guess.
What if my wii stoped working, and coudent be reparid, AND the store gave me a new one, what then? no VC games again?
My opinioen is: if i buy the game, pay for it, then i should bee able to transfer it to a SD card, take it to my friends plase, and play it there too.
Sorry for my typing/language error, english is not my strong side, but i try
Does anybody know something about golden eye to VC? i remember it was here on the news once`?
See ya boys and girls.
@Cengomania--I would create a My Nintendo account on the Nintendo website, and link your Wii Shop Channel to it, this registers every VC and WiiWare game that you purchase, and if you register your Wii there (Which you should, it extends your Wii's warranty by 90 days), it would help prove what VC/WiiWare games you purchased. That is about all you can do to protect yourself from going though all this again.
Heyyy cool idea
Thanx
Recently, i've just copied Tetris Party (three hundred somthing blocks) to my SD card and it was very quick, Thanks Nintendo.
If anybody is still worried about the Wii's short amout of storage space, just get an SD card that can hold a lot, because if you download the new Wii system update, it will take much less time to copy a game and game data to the card.
THAT'S IT, THE WII'S LACK OF STORAGE SPACE DOESN'T MATTER WHEN YOUR WII IS UP TO DATE, AND YOU HAVE A SD CARD WITH A LOT OF SPACE.
Please remember, SDHC is unsupported (apart from in homebrew, but you can't copy channels to SD in homebrew)
Ahhh Homebrew....My new friend! ;-D
....it still doesn't solve the solution of having more than 4 pages worth of games...
I thought it seemed really fast when I was transferring the other day!
This is great news, still not ideal but it'll make the whole block situation a lot easier
*goes to dowload some new WiiWare games *
nobody should ever want more than four pages of games at the current storage. You'd really have to purposely choose the very smallest of games to fill them all. I never get past three pages and am unlikely to even reach three pages what with all the large games I want to keep in storage.
Next I want to have accurate sizes of games when i am about to download them. I don't like having to go back and delete more games just so I meet the estimate size despite already having enough space for the actual number of blocks the game takes up. I'd also like lower block sizes - I notice that for some games, the block sizes are different per region.
Tony, why would piracy-killing cause you to be happy? Sour-graping because others got for free what you paid for? Or some political reason? I've paid for lots of VC games but I don't mind piracy at all. (In fact, some of the stinkers I've bought I wish I'd pirated instead!)
Sour-graping because others got for free what you paid for?
You're saying this is a bad reason for a gamer to want piracy dead?
@2097: You don't mind people stealing money from companies, trying to make it so they can't afford to make new games anymore? With the economy on a downward slide, it's not a good idea to make it even worse for a company you like. Piracy also forces companies to waste money upgrading anti-piracy software instead of making better games. If you want to play a little bit of a rom on a PC emulator to see if it sucks, I won't complain about that. It makes up for Nintendo not giving free trials like Microsoft does for all their Arcade games. But you should only do so with intent to buy the game if you like it. Stealing just to steal is not a good idea for a real gamer.
@ 62. 2097: That's just selfish thinking. I agree that piracy isn't as bad as theft, but it is not a victimless crime. I for one sell games, so every sale I lose because of piracy is money out of my pocket, so in essence you are stealing from me.
um . . . TOO the SD card? I guess that helps after the first time you download it. Isn't copying it FROM the SD card something that will happen more often? I guess that would be a harder thing to fix through firmware update.
Oh, about piracy. I'm not really offended personally, but it is true: If it weren't for people who buy games legitimately, there wouldn't be games to pirate (like, what if everybody decided to pirate games? Oops). So yes, they are effectively paying for people who steal software. Really, what goes around comes around.
"PC emulator to see if it sucks, I won't complain about that."
Yeah, that and stuff not out yet. Someone said it's technically illegal, but I used to like back-ups because of the extra options emulators usually have (like quicksaves and replays). With all the consoles that have come out over the years, I was excited for the Wii's potential to be an all-in-one console.
These SD Updates are pretty meaningless when your internal memory gets used up by greedy games such as Smash Bros Brawl, taking up 128 free blocks of memory and which CANNOT be copied to an SD card. Nice one Nintendo, now I don't have enough memory for new Wii game saves, let alone Wii Ware or VC.
Well I've updated and I just tried moving Gradius 2 to the SD card. It took the usual 3 minutes!
Update does nothing as far as I'm concerned.
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