Wii Storage Solution Solved - Finally A Use For The SD Card Slot!

It works great - it was a long time coming too!

Some of the bigger games take a few seconds to load up, but after that it's smooth sailing!

I've got all my WiiWare titles on the first SD page, and then the VC titles staggered through the next 4 pages. And I can finally use the Internet Channel again. Huzzah!

you still have to keep the save file on the system memory, but otherwise its great

Will it allow be to back up my Brawl data? And Animal Crossing? And Super Paper Mario and Mario Kart and and...Well even if it doesn't this is still pretty cool.

Ah see. I just downloaded it. It only allows you to back up WiiWare and VC. I have so many blocks left anyways. C'MON NINTENDO!!! I ALREADY LOST ALL MY DATA ONCE!!! DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN!!!

I'm thoroughly pleased. After having bought a 4gb SDHC, and finding that it didn't work, I went back and got a standard 2gb SD. So now that the HC ones work, that gives me a good 6gb to work from. Nice.

Maybe now we can get DLC and maybe games already released like (OMG) Brawl? Then again, the only Brawl needs updating on is its online but some new characters, stages, item, custom stage building pieces and more would be fine.

@Nintendo-Naut
no, it doesn't change how saves are handled, only games. So, the saves that do not permit moving or copying to SD still won't.

@Nintendo-Naut: I've lost my data too before. Had to pay the big N about $80 to repair my Wii. I would've gotten a new one, but unfortuantely the VC and WW games downloaded can't be recovered on another console... Sigh.

I uploaded vids of it a while ago, one other one is still processing. The whole conference made me really excited. News of FFCCMLK getting a sequel is something to get excited about also.

And I still have a complaint about it. I tried playing Pop off it as a test but I still needed to make room (only 55 Blocks on the Internal Memory). Wiiloveit suggested, though, having only Channels on the Menu and then running WiiWare games off the SD Card and I personally think that's a great idea, provided you set aside 300-600 (if you have SIGE) blocks to play said games. Kudos to them on integration and presentation though.

Awesome! And finally... But the games don't actually play directly from the SD-card, it first moves them temporarily into the Wii memory so you have to have enough space for the game on your Wii memory, but as said, the transferring is really fast and easy so this is technically like playing the game directly from the SD-card. And also support for larger cards is a very good news!

Thanks (at last) Nintendo! My problems are now solved!

I'm so happy right now that I retract all my previous statements about mailing my own human waste to Nintendo. Now that's happy.

All we need now is SD games playable immediately from the start screen (or at the least, a better colour scheme on the SD menu), and Wii game save data copied to the SD card, as one or two people above already said.

Otherwise, this update is brilliant, and I can only praise Nintendo for doing what they have done for us.

Alright people. Talk to me. This is all good and well. But really isn't a solution to the big problem. About a year ago my Wii died. Faulty mother-chip or something. Sent it into "the big N" with a warranty. Oh they fixed my Wii. And they wiped my Brawl, Galaxy, Super Paper Mario, Smooth Moves, Mario Kart, and Metroid Prime 3 data with it. Those were all the games I had at the time. I was mad. And to this day I'm still waiting for a back-up solution. I have found nothing. In the end, this is good for people who download VC and WiiWare by the droves. But what I really want is a back-up device of some kind.

@Nintendo-Naut: My Wii died almost exactly one year ago, too. They fixed mine, with all data OK. Back 'em up to an SD Card, and your fine. However, I imported Brawl, then when I sent it off Nintendo blocked the Freeloader, so firstly I ahd to wait a couple of months inorder to buy a second copy, and also they wiped my data on that.

Oh my god.
All these awesome updates at once. @_@

I am truly blown away at this news

@-TR
Dude, you can't back up most games to an SD card! That's the problem!!! Can't back up Brawl, Animal Crossing, Super Paper Mario, and most other games out there. The only games that I won that can be backed up are Galaxy, Smooth Moves, Boom Blox, and possibly MP3. I just don't get it.

wow! great news! now I actually have a reason to look at virtual console and wiiware again!

I haven't been downloading nearly the amount of things I would have if storage weren't an issue. So now, I can go back and get all those games that looked good, but not good enough to warrant all the hassle of moving things back and forth from the sd card.

@Wiiloveit: What's wrong with the color scheme of the SD card menu? I like it a lot better than the main Wii menu, actually. The black background looks GREAT!

I agree that all you need to do to have games run is keep about 400 free blocks on your Wii (really only need like 320 or so, but better safe, right?), and it should work just fine.

@Nintendo-Naut: Deepest sympathies, truly. Losing your data surely must suck (I hated when my brother overwrote ONE file for ONE SNES game years ago...), and I hope Nintendo fixes that problem for you soon. Fact is, though, the update they just did was INFINITELY more called-out-for, as more people ran out of room for downloads than lost save data.

Some save data can already be backed up, though. None of the games you mentioned can? I've never tried backing up any of those (though I probably should, just in case). Only game that never let me copy its file when I tried was Dr. Mario (small loss if that file was somehow deleted).

I fully agree with Chipmunk777. In fact, I just finally downloaded Neutopia to celebrate the storage solution! Never would've bothered if it had to be kept on my Wii.

@Stuffgamer1 - Agreed on the black background - it looks very awesome.

While I wasn't one of the people that NEEDED this (I was fine copying them to SD once finished with them), it'll be useful not having to transfer them back if I wanna play them down the track.

@ Nintendo-Naut- Actually most game saves can be backed up to the SD card. Most of the games that can't are games with some sort of online play. (Which for the Wii is still a fairly low number) It seems like there are a couple of non online games that can't be saved but again, the number is low.

I would say that I have well over 100 Wii game saves backed up and probably only about 10 games that won't allow me to do so. I will agree that it would be nice if Nintendo would change this but I think it is there to protect the online integrity of the games.

@Pablo17
Dude, I can't back up Brawl or Animal Crossing. Those two games alone should make you freak. Factor in Brawl's stages, charactors, trophies, and achievements and you have crying shame. Then add that to Animal Crossing's, townsfolk, house and furniture, and museum and it's...It's...CRAZY! It's just one of those things you SHOULD be able to do. I still say that dropping memory cards was DUMB idea.

saves can't be read from the SD, but of course they can stil backed up to the SD card as always.

And it's pretty obvios why the wii doesn't read saves form the card.
The acidental overwrite is one of them
(Duplicacion of the same save is the more obvious).

@MrPinguy
No the Wii says --Can't copy to the SD card--...Period.

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!

I've been waiting for this forever! Now I can finally put WoG back up there. Between this, GDC, and Zero Punctuation, this is the best Wednesday ever!

So cool.

This is more or less what I had in mind when they announced this. But sweeter. The only real tiny little complaint is that you don't have the intro/channel screen - but I can live with that.

Kick ass nintendo!

So glad for this update

Take that everyone saying USB, SD it is! After the last firmware, it was obvious what they where going to do.
@Nintendo-Naut: You can't backup those games because they have WiFi data stored on them.

@PALgamer
WHAT?! Then they need to have an individual file for that then!!!

It took them long time but here it is, a real solution for the downloadable data storage.

Yes, I haven't bought a VC or Wiiware game in quite some time because it was too annoying to not have enough space but now I can buy stuff again. I'm gonna grab a 8gb sd card since they cost very little these days.

Wow,
this is really fantastic news. changes my whole outlook on WW. I actually hesitated on a lot of purchases because I wan't interested in letting go of others or copying on every play, now it's all fixed. Sweet!

I did the update and tried playing world of goo and megaman 9 from the sd card and it actaully works i Love Nintendo again

I'm buying a game to celebrate.

I'm updating now. Here's a question. If I got SIGE (Space Invaders Get Even) and got the DLC, can I dump the game AND the DLC onto the SD and play from there or does the DLC have to stay on the Wii hard drive?
EDIT: So do you think the max game size on VC/WW downloads can go up now since bigger SD cards are supported? That would be great!

Forgive my ignorance, but what is SIGE? I probably know it by full name or something, but the acronym escapes me...

Edit: Oh, I just thought of it. Space Invaders Get Even, right? I can't answer your question, but I'm glad I figured it out.

More Edit: Oh, and you edited to clarify. How nice. Aren't acronyms a pain sometimes?

I wasn't even aware that the DLC saves separately from the main game file. I would IMAGINE it could run from the SD card, but I'm not sure. Based on Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, it's POSSIBLE that it could've run from SD even when the main game didn't. Again, I don't know. I would like to know how DLC would work for this, though. My Life as a King will likely be my first chance to find out unless somebody can tell me.

Good news also for the developers. It will be more attractive.
Perhaps the 40 MB memory limit will also change.

@Stuffgamer1-Acronyms are the best...except when they raise questions. DLC is usually saved like it's serpeate "save data" which is why I asked if it had to be on the system like actual game save data does.

Objection_Blaster
I am sure its gonna work beacuse i played my downloaded megaman 9 game from the sd and also the downloaded special and endless stage also from the sd at the same time.

@Objection_Blaster: Yeah, I do like acronyms when everybody knows what they stand for. I was just outta the loop this time for some reason.

If the DLC is saved as save data and not under channels, it probably won't work on the SD card. If you have the game and DLC, just check it out and let us know! I have a lousy 100 Wii Points and no games I can test with right now, so it's up to you (or whoever else reads this and decides to check)!

But like I said, if the game was already programmed so that the DLC would run from SD, it still will.

Yes!!!! I've been waiting for so long!!!!!

now if only nintendo would lift that 40 MB size limit for games,maybe we could get games that are up to 100MB

Epic win!

Now we know what took Nintendo so long. They actually listened and gave us a REAL solution rather than the previously promised "Easy copy". I can't believe they even added SDHC support. (shock) Now THAT is service!

Way to go Nintendo!!!

I look forward to seeing what comes out of this arcade thing as well. The launch games are a little weak, but I imagine they'll get better with time*.

* More shoot'em ups, please.

I have been trying to download the update for about 5 hours now. No dice. Wiiloveit, you should go ahead with your plan to mail Nintendo your own bodily waste. For me?

I am online. Played Dr. Mario online several times today. But the update part of the system menu just sits there idly, the blue bar not moving for a few minutes, then says I need to check my internet connection. Is no one else having this problem...?

The blue light often comes the next day all you have to do to get the update today is to go into the option menu and choose wii system and internet connection choose check connection and update and your all set.

"Many suggested Nintendo would come out with a hard drive solution like the Xbox 360 thinking that the Wii hardware was not up to the task of playing games directly from SD cards. Thankfully it seems that this assumption was wrong!" Not quite.....at least from what I've heard.. Doesn't this update just temporarily copy over the game and let you play it that way? Because that's what Guitar Hero does for its music downloads but I could be wrong.

Your are completely right tides of chaos it loads the game up and then plays it

And ANOTHER person misunderstands Adam's problem.

As I get it, you're trying to update, FROM THE MENU AS PEOPLE KEEP TELLING YOU TO, but it doesn't work right.

I couldn't tell you why, unfortunately. This update is so major, I expect a LOT of people are going for it all at once. Maybe you just have really crappy luck with getting it to work?

what a great day to be sick huh?
I missed everything

YES! anybody who read comment 149 and below on the dsi vc thread, knows that I have needed this As much asanyone! I am sooo happy today

@ Nintendo-Naut

Game saves that have friendcode data within them can't be backed up, if you could and then passed it onto a friend you would both have the same code and when you both connected to the net with that game your Wii's would blow up (slight exaggeration).

Just another reason to hate friendcodes I guess.

@jangonov: Yes, this I know. And YOU know that I incorrectly predicted AGAINST today's announcement yesterday. I'm glad I'm a sucky fortune teller.

I'm confused about this friend code back-up thing. I backed up Wii Music no problem!

@Stuffgamer1: I can see why some people will like the black colour scheme, but I just don't think it feels right. It'll probably grow on me in time, but part of me thinks it might have been better if Nintendo just included everything on the same menu, but maybe had a little "SD" icon in the corner of games on your memory card.

Finally!!!! This should've been out a long time ago.

@Wiiloveit: I was originally hoping they'd redo the entire menu so that you have a single listing for each system on the main menu, and a sub-menu from there. That would be cool, but probably VERY hard to work out on the Wii firmware. I'm happy with the way they did things, though.

Actually, there's ONE thing I wonder about. If the Wii can now read such massive SD cards, it's probably possible to fill up all 240 channels and not run out of memory. What then? You'd have to get a new card, I guess. Better not invest in cards TOO big, I think.

This is great!!!! I cant wait till I get home to give this a try.

@Stuffgamer1: Maybe they'll expand with you? I dunno :S
If you have that many games in the first place though, you need to watch your wallet.
As for the colour scheme, what if they let us choose (like on the DS)?

Happy Day! Considering I have a lot of games! I am very happy...finally! :D

Wow, it works great! I am so happy. Now I may start buying WiiWare and VCgames again!

@Wiiloveit: I doubt it. There was never a way to get more than the 48 channels on the system.

I'll probably never have that many downloaded Wii games, anyway. I was just theorizing. I could afford to if I didn't also have a PS3, 360, DS (soon to be DSi, of course), and PSP to blow money on. And there would have to be enough games I actually WANTED, of course.

I have a lot of redownloading and moving to do, and my SD card is only 1GB. I'll get a bigger one when the time comes for such a need.

This is awesome, now I'll be able to have faster access to all my VC games ... and buy a lot more also

@49 (Stuffgamer1)
Well, thanks at least for being the first one to read the whole comment, hahaha. I've had really bad luck with this, lately. Yesterday the Shop Channel was perfectly happy to take my money for the points, but when I actually wanted to download Detana Twinbee, THEN suddenly it decided to tell me there was an error, despite there not being a connection problem at all.
Maybe I have just downloaded too much and Nintendo is tired of me. The sad thing is, I could probably fill up multiple SD cards with all the games I've purchased, and now that I finally should be able to use them, the Wii Update decides not to work -- after the countless updates I downloaded without a hitch that offered nothing I cared about at all.

I have read that if you move your data to an SDHC card that the Rock Band and Guitar Hero downloaded songs don't work yet. Does anyone know if this is true? I am not home yet so I can't confirm it. Thanks!

@Stuffgamer1
if you have money for 240 channels
you have money for a new SD card

///

Now for every people in general that is like "this should have been there in the first place" just shut up, because this solution is free, so that's not a valid excuse.
Since past is past, and you don't lose money.

I really excited about this news, if only I had an SD Card, LOL. This came out with perfect timing too. My Wii is filled up with Strong Bad and Helix, so this will let me keep those games while enjoying Swords and Soldiers also. Whenever it comes out. cough cough

So, any idea how long we'll be able to do this until the built in flash hits its read-write limit and you end up sending your Wii into the shop to get new flash installed?

This is hopefully a stopgap measure and Nintendo will do a major IOS overhaul that will require updates to all WiiWare games so they can actually run off SD rather than do what appears to be a background copy (unless of course this supposition is wrong and the games are just loading straight into RAM).

I ran Nintendo Channel off SD and games of whatever size and they all load at the same speed. I've now got over 800 blocks free on each Wii and many stock channels back on the front page for the first time in over a year.

It didnt really help, you still have to take games off and put it in the sd card, it just goes quicker... If they had an update where it takes all the memory and games on the sd card and add it to the wii console, that would be much better.

@jangonov - You know what this means, right? It means you need to buy another SD card to take advantage of the SDHC support! Just can't win, can you?

@Sean Aaron - Modern Flash memory uses a technique called "wear leveling" to extend the life of the memory. These days, you should have several million writes in store before blocks begin going bad. That's about as long as a regular hard drive.

These all these comments allready which is still nothing to VC-reviews version of the articale which has allready got 130 comments.
I guess there's a lot more of us Geeks & otaku than Nintendo thought.

Woot!!

I get sdhc.. load game on sd.

I'm posting in all of them I'm so excited about it.

Oh and thanks thewiirocks that puts my mind at ease. Now if Nintendo announces 5 releases a week for the next two years for the Virtual Console Arcade I'll be beside myself and looking for a second job to pay for all the downloading I'll be doing....

You know why they can't load directly from the SD card, right? DRM.

I updated my Wii immediately after I came home from work. After shuffling around all of my Virtual Console and WiiWare titles I now have the following setup:

WiiWare games in section 1,
NES and Master System titles in section 2,
TurboGrafx 16/Turbo Duo games in section 3,
Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive titles in section 4, and
Miscellaneous in section 5.

I really like the black background - I admit that it's simple but striking, especially when the background contrasts with the game names themselves. I also loved the "Move" feature which saves time in moving games to the SD and clearing space instead of manually copying the game first to the card, then deleting the game from internal storage. I moved Bit.Trip Beat and Same Game in this manner to clear space.

After about an hour of work I now have over 1,150 blocks of space on the internal memory - which is awesome because the Internet Channel would have been deleted eventually if this didn't come along. The games now have a minor delay in loading into RAM before starting but at least I can play Sin & Punishment, Mario Kart 64, Gradius 2: Gofer's Ambition and even have room for My Life As A King without worrying about having around 50 blocks of space left.

I also love the moving ability. It makes it so organized

Ok there's something I don't get quit well. You can launch the games from the SD card but do you still need that amount of blocks in your wii memory? or it plays directly from the card?

@Sean Aaron - Glad I could help!

@Wolfcoyote Sez... which is awesome because the Internet Channel would have been deleted eventually

You raise an interesting point. A lot of users deleted their Internet Channel due to space constraints. I wonder if the additional space freed up by this move will cause Wii owners to restore the Internet Channel?

I hope so. That way they can go play this awesome Shoot'em Up! /shameless plug

@buffalobob - I found your answer in IGN's article on the topic:

It takes a few seconds, as the data must first be loaded into temporary storage on the Wii's internal flash memory -- the game won't run directly off the SD. That means you'll still need to have enough space cleared for the game, as if you were attempting to copy it over to the Wii's internal memory permanently. So, for example, you can't launch the 287 block Sin & Punishment from your SD if you only have 50 free blocks on the Wii.

oh I see! Thanks!

@thewiirocks re the Internet Channel: maybe, but Nintendo has GOT to update the Wii's Macromedia Flash capabilities from version 6 to at least 9 (Windows & Mac have version 10, correct?). Internet functionality aside, if Wii owners move all of their VC and WW onto the SD card and leave the game saves, a small amount of downloadable content and the basic channels then there should be a ton of space left for the internet or any games we want to play.

I have to rest up for work now (meaning I'll probably be playing Bit.Trip Beat for another hour).

@thewiirocks
I dont know whether to cry because of this solution or cry because you are right. I wont have any money! Im running out as is! lol

FOR PEOPLE HAVING TROUBLE WITH UPDATING: It's likely because everyone is trying to do it right now and the NINTY servers are backed up. Try again tomorrow. Sorry.
@Restoring Channels-I put the Internet and Ninty Chans back on for the first time in months since I now have 1000+ blocks free since everything is on my SD now
Also, anyone else think it would've been cooler to have an "SD channel" instead?

@ Wolfcoyote sez... Nintendo has GOT to update the Wii's Macromedia Flash capabilities from version 6 to at least 9

The Wii actually has version 7, not 6. (6 would really suck.) Of course, version 8 was already out by the time the Internet Channel hit the streets.

Officially, there is no toolkit for which Opera can create a Flash 9 or 10 plugin. (10 being the most recent.) However, Sony was able to obtain Flash 9 for their POS mobile browser, so it's a bit surprising that Nintendo hasn't chased down Adobe and forced them to fork over some code.

Personally, I think Flash support is done for. Nintendo and Opera only added Flash into the Internet Channel so that Youtube would work. (They've said as much.) I don't think Nintendo has any intention of updating it, and I actually feel that they'll remove it in the next console. (Note that the DSi lacks Flash support.) If they want Youtube support, they'll probably go the way of the iPhone and get direct access to MP4s through a custom channel.

That's why the future is (IMHO) Javascript games. Considering the lack of direct access to the Wii Remote from Flash, Javascript is actually a more reliable solution. Check these out for examples of what can be done:

• Coverfire
• Replicator
• Pentriix: Multiplayer Tetrimino Game

Note that controls adapt themselves to the PC vs. the Wii. You'll get the best experience on the Wii, but you'll see PC controls available if you play them on a PC.

I hope that's the case, Objection Blaster, but I have tried many, many times throughout the day, and you'd think one of those times would have worked if that was the problem. I might call Nintendo's tech support tomorrow, but that's generally a waste of time. I probably spent an hour total with them on the phone trying to get Brawl online and I still can't play the darn game.

I wonder if this means we will see bigger wiiware games and not just bigger virtual console games. Also, I hope one day they decide to update the flash the opera browser uses and add maybe java support.

@ NeoNight - I doubt it. First of all, the WiiWare is still limited by the copy it keeps in main memory. If Nintendo allows the files to get too big, they'll start conflicting with saved games. (Some of which get frighteningly huge! Elebits and Blast Works are two particularly bad offenders that come to mind.) Secondly, a minor increase in the download size isn't going to matter much. It will simply let developers be a bit lazier than before. You'd need a rather massive increase to make a difference. (As Microsoft found out with XBLA.)

Java support is right out. Implementing it would be too complex for the Wii's simple design, and Nintendo and Opera have stated they don't feel like it would add much.

I can see them doubling the max wiiware size. With this new solution it's HIGHLY likely that users will have upwards of 700 blocks free in the system memory at all times for the temporary transfer from SD.

Why did this take so long?

I love this new feature.

Now lets see some more releases per week and soon the wii ware library and market will thrive to newer heights.

i hope this takes off the 40mb limit on the wiiware games!!

@MrPinguy: True, that wouldn't be a problem at all. My original point was to find out how big a card you really NEED to fill up 240 channels. No point getting a 32gig card if you can't fill it all before you run out of channels, right?

Doing a little basic math here to appease my curiosity. If you put nothing but 40MB WiiWare games on a 32gig SD card, assuming the card takes no memory for its own use (which of course it would, but I don't know how to tell how much and it doesn't really matter in the end anyway), it could be filled up with 800 games.

If you again assume only downloading 40MB games, you would need a little under 10 gigs of usable storage for a full 240 titles. It's unreasonable to say that a person will ONLY download games of that size, so I think it's safe to say that an 8 gig SD card would be more than enough for 99.99% of Wii users. An overzealous downloader like jangonov MIGHT find need of a larger one so he could store music game tracks.

The original point of this query was half curiosity and half trying to make sure people don't waste money on huge cards they can't really make full use of. If I ever somehow manage to fill up all 240 channels, I'll have no real problem buying another SD card and splitting content between them by system.

different topic below

I was kind of wondering about the Flash thing as well. It's good to know that modern Flash works so well. Thanks, thewiirocks!

Great news...!

the update for me took nearly 2 hours

So, any idea how long we'll be able to do this until the built in flash hits its read-write limit and you end up sending your Wii into the shop to get new flash installed?
If the limit is 100,000 you could get away with 10 a day for about 27 years. Of course you'll probably do more than 10 a day since power up is one, copying to SD is another, loading save, saving save etc...so let's hope its more than 100,000...or have I completely misunderstood this

My update took longer than normal (2 or 3min. instead of the usual 60sec. -- I love DSL2 and being across the street from the exchange).

@PALgamer: good point about DRM, but I don't see why that would prevent running right off the card into RAM; I assumed there was either a watermark on the game or some kind of database on the system that says what it's authorised to run.

I think this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but you need to make sure you have enough space to accomodate your largest game in the Wii's internal flash. If you check your memory management screen after running a game you'll note that there's a file in the Data Save section with SD Cache on it; when you click that you'll note it's the same size as whatever the last game you ran was and has its name referenced.

I'm just putting all my games on my SD card; Wii Fit is the only thing staying on my PAL Wii; I've not restored the Internet Channel yet, but I'll probably end up doing that finally. The Nintendo Channel runs great off of SD, so I don't really see a need to move that back.

We should be set for the foreseeable future -- well, unless you end up with enough games that your save data takes up all your internal flash.

I think we might still see some kind of flash drive add-on from Nintendo (even if only in Japan) which extends the directly addressable internal flash and would be targeted at people who have really huge game collections or too much spare cash.

@nintendo87
Doubt it, as it still copies them over to the Wii memory rather than running them from the SD a limit has to be set.(@joeshabadoo) Also just like Xbox360 games in a way, you can't just assume everyone has a storage device.

@Sean Aaron:
"I assumed there was either a watermark on the game or some kind of database on the system that says what it's authorised to run."

Yeah, there is. If you haven't tried it already, you're unable to copy a game to the SD card and copy it over to a different Wii. (We experimented with one saved game, though, and that worked.)

So you're right, the downloads are already built to recognize which unit it "belongs" to.

@Sean Aaron: That would have a better solution (faster writting speeds in RAM) but might be a lot harder to implement. I think Nintendo made the DRM content so everything had to be inside the Wii's internal memory (don't know exactly how the Wii's DRM works). For instance, when the Wii's first got out, there was no SD option to let you copy your saves or downloads, everything had to be done through the internal memory. Don't think they ever thought the need of expanding the internal memory, since at the designing stage only Virtual Consoles would be available for download.

Well, there's always room for improvement, so I'm just going to enjoy it for what it is at the moment and look forward to more content.

Anyone else notice that Amazon.co.uk is offering pre-orders for 3000 point cards for only £12.99? If that's not a mistake on their part (which I've taken advantage of buy purchasing two); I hope it's not a sign of a WiiShop price rise...

i've just bought a Wii 1 week ago , 3 seconds later new update, woah !

i'm using the 2gb (s*ndisk) from my digital camera
and i'll buy Pes09 (brand new) and 3-4 wiiware thingies

hope this 'real' money will let Nintendo develop more and more

@Sean Aaron: You're not the only person who've noticed that, and I've also taken advantage of the odd pricing, especially considering the unusually high prices on other 'sites.
ADDED After checking, it appears that I hadn't actually purchased it (how strange), and the price has since doubled (how annoying).

Also: after reading above comments RE: bigger games, could this mean that we can finally get our hands on Braid? If so, I need an announcement within the next week before I get it on Steam

Wow, the Wii Update 4.0 is long overdue and a welcome sight. Although I'm more excited about the possibilities than the actual outcome, it's a step in the right direction. (I think it's a big step, but that's just me.)

Maybe now we'll see the "Arch Rivals" arcade classic! "Arch Rivals" was the most not-like-Basketball "Basketball" game I ever played.

We can hope...

I echo the "It's about time" sentiments on here, but greet the update with both enthusiasm and relief. No more cleaning out the fridge, thank God. That said, here's my wishlist:
1.) It would have been nice to have a save file in the system memory of the last state of the SD card so it wouldn't have to read from the SD card each time to retreive and populate the channels.

2.) An "SD Channel" in the main menu would have been more attractive and perhaps effected #1, above.

3.) The start-screen of each app loaded from the SD is automatically by-passed. I would have preferred to click "Start" myself on those screens - even though it's an extra step (this is a game system here, not a productivity machine).

4.) Call me weird, but the UI doesn't seem as elegant as I've come to expect from Nintendo, particularly for the Wii console. The SD icon on the lower left and opening an alternate menu seems a bit... kludgy?

5.) Perhaps clicking to the LEFT of the main menu could have brought up the channels on the SD card...?

But I don't wanna come across like an ingrate. In spite of the above, I let out an audible WOOOO-HOOOOO! when I saw the update, and yet another when I saw support for SDHC. Good job overall, Ninty.

-V

just got the update and tested it out and ive got to say im pretty happy with it! i always thought they should have channels with a mixture on main storage and sd card storage but never thought off seperating them into a new channel section but it works well and allows you to organise your games in one section and other stuff eg mi channel, internet channel into another section on the main storage. Im sure there's a few little tweaks and changes could be done to make it even better but i think its sorted out the problem it needed to so very happy with nintendo.

@Stuffgamer1
HEY! who are you calling an overzealous downloader?.......(bursts out laughing) ok I know I am

Yeah, as many others I was eagerly waiting for this, this is good step forward for Nintendo. I'm really enjoying this update, on my wii and on this site, so many positive comments, is so nice .

With this update, will we finally see Sam and Max Season 2 for WiiWare?

@SuperVortex099-Probably not, but S2 has been announced as a Wii retail disc game (at least in the US.)

Is anyone having problem with freezes? It happened to my like 3 times.

@WhoKnew, not me, but I got an error message out of the blue. my first error message ever! said something like "files are corrupted." I turned off the power and back on and so far it works fine. pretty scary though and I was wondering if anyone else had this same error message? if so, I think we might have a lawsuit on our hands. my friend said whenever he sends a wiimail he gets the error mesage, ever sense the update. wtf!!

@ZIMM: Ive been getting Error messages too. Whenever Im online playing Brawl, in a middle of a match the error thing pops up. I hope they come out with 4.1 soon.

Cool

A very useful update.