Nintendo’s WiiWare channel is reported to be doing well (says Nintendo) and their Virtual Console games continue to invoke nostalgic downloads. Now, as Networked based gaming slowly starts to crawl on the console Nintendo has begun to realize they’re going to hit some storage issues.
The 512MB of internal flash memory is a bit lacking, especially considering you can purchase a 2GB flash drive for under USD $50.00 in todays market. While Sony and Microsoft work to increment their disk capacities in 20GB intervals Nintendo’s still trying to figure out how to solve their internal storage issues.
Although we initially heard that geeks would be the ones to hit the storage limitations Nintendo’s North American President and COO is readily admitting the pending issue, “we have a consumer base who loves virtual console. We have a userbase who really is enjoying WiiWare content. So for us really our challenge really is how do we satisfy all these consumers who are loving all of the product we make available on a download basis?”
The challenge in being a Japanese based company is understanding how American users consume your product. We’re much more likely to download content and spend money on products we’ve purchased 20 years ago. This is why we’ve got an American based Nintendo HQ to understand the ways of American thinking and trending.
While Nintendo Europe’s Europe’s Laurent Fischer sees only “geeks and otaku” utilizing the minimal disk capcity we here in the States can consume this space overnight. Imagine if we had downloadable content for Rock Band or Guitar Hero to pull down and play!?
As this becomes, as Reggie put it, a “mainstream problem” Nintendo is going to find their harder core demographic moving to other consoles that do it right and allow for expandability. There is a reason, after all, the other consoles cost a bit more to buy.
(Thanks, IGN)
Going for the sex sells eh? Not that anyone would know the difference either way.
“Companies spend money like fish” Doesn’t sound like any company I’ve been at. I have at two work places that had several computers still on XP, they take a long time to upgrade anything. I’ve seen old plotters still be used from decades ago. I think companies tend to the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Paul if you have a spare Windows 7 computer why don’t you see if Grim Fandango works on it? Or have you already tried?
@Windows 10: Yeah it feels like a real desperate attempt at good will for the Windows OS in general. I think giving it away free for a year they feel will garner some slack. Though if you upgrade I don’t know if you can go back to Windows 7 or 8.
@Kojima: I think Metal Gear is becoming one of those games that need to be retired now.
@Tempest Debacle: Looking at the screen shots I feel like I have seen this game mechanic before in other games. Having never played these two I can see it’s a ship that spins around a “pit” shooting at things in the center. I feel that that was a very old Atari game at some point. However he’ll probably have to pay a settlement for this as it does look like he is trying to remake the game that belongs to Atari now. There’s making a game that uses certain mechanics and then there’s just making what looks to be a clone of what they did previously. If I made a game where you jump up and down a large block pyramid with a little orange dude named Q’bort I’m sure Atari would see through that as well.
@Xbox for sale: If it’s for sale maybe a former console company could buy it to bring its self back like Sega or Atari. Though I don’t know if anyone would want to buy it. With the way they’ve been talking about integrating Xbox and Windows gaming I don’t think they would sell that then.
@Nintendo’s NX Gen: I’m intrigued what they will do, if nothing else we’ll have a new name to have fun with the NX Gen.
Since there was no QotW, I thought I’d ask something: “What do you think is the future of Old Games?” To give more context anyone who wants to read an old book, see an old movie or listen to an old song can easily do so. However with Games that will become difficult, especially in cases of games that are Online only and once servers are gone so too is the game. Later generations of people may have a hard time playing games that are no longer workable on current gen consoles or even computers. I wanted to know what your guys thoughts are on this.