Nintendo Wii U Will Feature Expandable Memory

Today, as many of you already know, the Wii U finally received pricing information and a release date. Along with those rather important details, we were also treated to a list of specs for the console. Everything seems to be solid, but there's one thing leaving consumers scratching their heads: storage, or lack thereof.

The Wii U comes in two different packages. The Basic package offers 8GB of internal storage, while the Deluxe Set comes packing 32GB under the hood. Both of those numbers seem a little on the small side given the gaming industry's current shift toward digital content. In an investor call today after the big event, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that the Wii U will actually feature expandable storage through USB, saying that should the need arise, you'll be able to increase your Wii U's storage to your heart's content.

"You can plug in a full-on three terabyte hard drive if you want. I'll love you as a digital consumer," Fils-Aime said. "The reason we did it that way is that the cost of that type of storage memory is plummeting. What we didn't want to do is tie a profit model to something that's gonna rapidly decline over time. We'll let the consumer buy as much as they want, as cheaply as they want." This isn't the first time we've seen a console that lets users expand memory on their own – the PS3, for instance, is compatible with any 2.5-inch SATA 5400rpm hard drive, and the Wii came with support for SD cards.

Fils-Aime also revealed that the Wii U doesn't come with any TiVo or DVR hardware installed, meaning that if you want to take advantage of those features, you'll need to have existing hardware on hand. That's a bummer, but not entirely unexpected, given the price of the Wii U. That price will likely attract quite a bit of attention this holiday season, so maybe Nintendo is well on the way to repeating the success of the original Wii. We shall see soon enough.

[via Engadget]