Wii System Update 4.0 – hands on.
The Wii 4.0 software update was recently released. I held off on installing it because my Wi-Fi connection is a pain to set up, but having heard a lot of good things online I plugged in the Nintendo USB Wi-Fi connector and (after reinstalling the Nintendo drivers twice) got it up and running.
One SD card icon.
Also to help with the memory issues the update has managed to increase the maximum supported capacity of SD card. From a previous cap of 2GB the SD card slot now supports up to 32GB. Considering that the average size of downloadable content for Wii is smaller than most of its peers (and the fact that they don’t require patches/updates) 32GB seems more than enough. It also adds the interesting question of how this new 32GB limit was reached. With a software patch raising the limit maybe even this is merely an arbitrary amount, not a hardware limitation, so can be raised further in the future.
The new Freeloader screen...
There is a chance the removal of import support was accident in the update. Perhaps an altered file name making my boot disk incompatible, as opposed to an outright attempt by Nintendo to cripple my ability to play local (Japanese) games on my US system. The result is the same however. Though the extra functionality of 4.0 is welcome, had I known installing it would have prevented my enjoyment of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom I would not have bothered. After all what’s more of an annoyance – having to juggle games I rarely play between storage media or not being able to play a game I actually enjoy?
Tags: Freeloader, Nintendo, SD card, Wii
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I have never understood their tight-fisted use of region-locking, especially since every handheld they made (until the DSi) was completely region free. There’s a reason everyone loves Osu Tatakae Ouendan and it became such a huge hit that it garnered a complete English-language spin-off – that’s because anyone with a DS anywhere in the world could play it. By all means, share your thoughts on what their reasoning is, because I don’t see it. To me region-locking is a bone-headed way to turn away eager customers.
It’s funny, I wrote something similar yesterday about how the Wii is actually the most consumer-unfriendly system on the market (region-locking, minimal online offerings, software lineup drowning in shovelware) and yet it is the most popular video game console in the world. Do you think Sony and Microsoft might actually reconsider their remarkably open-door policies? Or will they continue to allow customers to buy whatever software they want to maximize profitability? I guess I’m hoping for something to convince Nintendo to see that they’re being dicks, but right now there’s no way they can hear the complaints over the sound of their money-printing machines.
Region locking was always money based. It allows developers and publishers to manage the number of sales, predict sales and control the prices people in each region will pay. For the most part I don’t mind it as long as companies get their games out quickly. It becomes frustrating when games take forever to come out OR never receive a release in foreign markets (and keep price and profit higher in European markets).
I suspect next gen the issue will be mute any way as more of the games become down loadable (or there becomes a heavier reliance on DLC) and things become locked by credit card. Even if this isn’t the case though I doubt any company will go back to region locking games, Nintendo can only get away with it because they always have, even though back in the day the locks were physical or regional (due to cartridge shape or TV resolution) as opposed to software locks. With the world market the way it is it would seem crazy to prevent people buying your games the way they want.
Oh, and a word of warning, not all 360 games are region free. Check on sites like Play-Asia for compatibility with your system and imported games.
I’ve not been able to locate any info about the size of the update; any idea what it is. Thanks!
Do you mean the size of the update? Its small, just a few minor tweaks, which happen to include the ability to read from the SD card.