Nintendo Announces Wii Storage Fix, Punch-Out Franchise Return

Author: by Staff

Among a plethora of announcements at the same Tokyo press conference debuting the DSi handheld, Nintendo has revealed a Spring 2009 fix allowing the Wii to play games from SD cards, also debuting new titles including Punch-Out and a Sin & Punishment sequel. According to Japanese websites attending the press conference, as translated by game weblog Kotaku, Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has announced a fix for the Wii's inability to play games from external memory storage. Currently, the Wii's limited flash memory will only hold a few WiiWare titles, and once copied to an SD card via the console's memory card slot, the games can only be stored, and not played. However, according to Iwata, Nintendo is going to make it possible to download games onto SD cards starting Spring 2009. In addition to this announcement, a number of new Wii announcements were made at the press conference. In particular, a trailer reel of new Wii games revealed a Wii version of NES classic Punch-Out, alongside a follow-up to Treasure N64 cult classic Sin & Punishment. Also revealed at the event was a Wii version of DS adventure title Another Code/Trace Memory, alongside Dynasty Warriors 3 appearing on Wii for the first time, and a new 'flagship' Tales title from Namco Bandai. Finally, classic Gamecube titles will be re-released intact for Wii in Japan under the name 'Wii de Asobu Selection' (Play On Wii Selection), starting with Miyamoto-designed fan favorite Pikmin. Streaming videos of the Japanese Wii line-up for 2008 and 2009 are currently available at Nintendo's press conference event page under the Nintendo Conference 'Wii' link.