WiiLoaded.com - Wii Forum and News

I don't know much about modding a Wii or what the internal structure is like, but for those who know, would it be possible to increase the amount of internal memory in the console?

not easily, It's not like swapping out an HDD, it's a flash chip soldered on, so unless you can piggy-back a chip then you'd have to de-solder the old one and replace it with a newer one of higher capacity.

Or if you were a real wiz, you could somehow put an HDD controller there, but that might not be feasable

Yeh, that's what I thought.


admin edit - caps

If I tried anythink like that I would most likely break my Wii.
But I would like some more memory, I was hopefull that Nintendo would mention a HD at E3. So I was left disapointed.

Well there rumors floating around about an external HDD. I saw this awhile back. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to add more memory. I'm modding my wii right now to install internal gamecube memory. I'm sure its no more difficult than that.

External USB Drive for Nintendo Wii on Tap?

Nintendo Wii aficionados are painfully aware that their beloved gaming console, while scoring big in the fun department, comes up shy when it comes to storage—just 512MB of internal memory, to be exact (not counting the slot for SD memory cards). However, good news—and a lot more RAM—could be on the horizon.

The gamers at Gizmodo have heard whispers that an external USB storage device for the Wii could be in the works. According to a press release from Japanese developer eSol, Nintento has contracted with the company to use its USB stack and FAT file system for an upcoming Wii product. Read between the lines and it looks like a USB drive for the console could be on its way—great news for Wii fans looking to load up on Virtual Console games, images or music files.

Click for the source.

I did see that mod online but the reason I think doing the same for Wii memory would be harder is because as D4rk mentioned, the Wii's memory is already soldered into the system. With the GameCube memory mod, all you have to do is solder wires from the memory card to the system. And now that I think about it, modding your Wii like that would probably force you to keep that memory card inside all the time since trying to take it out could damage the GC memory slot.

Those rumors have been around since before the console was released. I'm starting to doubt it's even possible. If it was, we would've seen some third party peripheral maker trying to cash in.

Would it be possible for Nintendo, through a firmware update, to grant games access to the SD slot so that save files or VC games can be saved to and read from the cards. More RAM would only help to speed up load times, which really aren't too bad on Wii at the moment.

I think Nintendo could do that, just a matter if they are going to or not. They might be afraid that it would make it easier for people to copy the VC games from one memory card to another and then be able to play it on any Wii.

I doubt it. I think that when you download a Virtual Console game it gets... assigned, a code which matches your Wii. So if the codes between the game and console don't match the game won't play. If there was a way around that, we would've seen it already.

why couldn't a wiz create some small set of instructions to add to the Wii perhaps via sd card so that it would recognize a usb 2.0 external hard drive? wouldn't that be easier that take the thing apart and messing?

Yea, thats why im doing it. I just got 2 big gc memory cards. I'm mounting them inside so I dont have to have memory cards sticking out of the side. Of course that will only work the way i want it to if I can fit the card for the wireless gc controller inside. Otherwise it defeats my whole purpose of wanting to keep my wii looking clean.

I was hoping the Wii's internal memory would hold out for at least a year or 2, but I probably will be disappointed... I see where you're coming from with this.

Do you guys already have your internal memory full? I have not had my wii that long so it seems to me like there is plenty there. But I guess after a year or more it may fill up.

When I buy a few VC games, which I plan to do soon, it probably will be :\

On other forums I have read about many people who have already filled their internal memory.
All these thoughts of upgrades are really impossible until people figure out how to hack the Wii. So far there are no real Wii specific mods. The current line of modchips work exactly the same as the GC mod chips. We were only lucky Nintendo was dumb enough to give us our Wii AKA Gamecube version 1.5 with the same backdoor in place.