Wii Hard Drive = Bad Idea
Rumors have abounded concerning a Wii Hard Drive, and Nintendo is expected to make an announcement this July at e3 on this subject. They have already announced that they are working with a company that specializes in data storage functionality so a storage solution is definitely on Nintendo's mind. What's more is that some Wii gamers and fan sites have been clamoring for a Wii Hard Drive citing their massive amount of purchased VC games, but if you think about it a Wii HD is not good news.
From the beginning Nintendo dismissed the need for a HD and instead touted the SD and USB functionality of the Wii. The 500megs of flash memory on the Wii more than proves that Nintendo didn't see a HD in the Wii's future. Many gamers, including myself, listened to Nintendo and purchased a few extra SD cards, and I'll be damned if they ask me to buy an expensive HD after they dismissed it and touted SD cards.
Now a Wii HD is a bad idea for a lot of reasons, not including what I just mentioned. The first thing to consider is that Nintendo isn't going to sell a hard drive for less than $75. It doesn't matter how much space it has. No console HD has ever been cheap, usually going for double or triple the market value, and unless Nintendo suddenly decides to be gracious they will follow everyone else's lead and charge an arm & leg. The HD will also not be compatible with anything other than a Wii. Nintendo is not fond of sharing their hardware so don't expect to pop out your Wii HD and stuff it in your PC. Also don't expect it to roll over onto the next Nintendo console.
The Most important problem with a Wii HD is the game development. Adding a large storage device suddenly changes how developers see a console, and it brings a slew of headaches. History has taught us that developers don't like HD add-ons because it forces them to exclude the gamers who don't have one or piss off the ones who do. They can't make a game that caters to both audiences so one of them ends up getting screwed. If you buy a Wii HD and they don't end up making games for it you get screwed, and if you don't buy and they make tons of Wii HD only games you get screwed. I don't want these types of problems. Do you?
A Wii HD would fly in the face of everything Nintendo has told us gamers up until now, and make the Wii's SD slot worthless. What Nintendo needs to do is make it so that we can use our SD cards or USB storage devices THAT WE ALREADY OWN in a better way. Make it so that we can play games off of our SD cards. Make it so that we can run our game saves off of them. Get rid of the archaic restrictions and let gamers us these devices in the way that we all thought we were going to be able to from the very beginning.
It's time that Nintendo gets more user friendly, and giving us better SD card functionality instead of a HD is a great way to start.
