Posted Aug 02, 2008 at 10:51AM by Isaac C. Listed in: News Tags: Reggie Fils-Aime, patent, Nintendo Company Ltd., Nintendo of America
Ó

Nintendo Wii video game news - Image 1 


Storage space on the Wii has been a growing problem for some time now. Even Nintendo of America's Reggie Fils-Aime was forced to admit that it's now a "mainstream problem." Still, it seems that Nintendo's solution may be a bit overkill, if this newly uncovered patent has anything to say about it.

According to the patent, Nintendo is working with InPhase Technologies to use Holographic Data Storage. This storage tech may very well be the next stage media storage after Blu-ray. Their storage technology aims to store anywhere from 300 GB to 1.6 TB (yes, that's terabytes) of space. I did say overkill.

It's all speculation for now though. Will it be used as a storage solution for the Wii? Or will Nintendo finally compete in the next batch of consoles in terms of hardware performance? At any rate, this is very promising news, and I for one, am very excited to see where they're going to go with this.



Related Articles:


[Via US Patent & Trademark Office] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

Bookmark / Find this article on:


19 Comments


Sort by:
   by Advertising -
   by emcp - 2008-08-02
 » mmm

im

sorry but that didnt clear anything up

is this going to be a disc to store saves that shouldnt be allowed of the wii console O_o not to mention VC games

is it going to be built into the wii, with so it doesnt exactly replace B-R


heres an idea nintendo a decent harddrive would be nice 5gb even, that might be a bit overkill lol


   Re: Isaac C. (QJ. NET Staff) - 2008-08-02
 » We can only guess

It isn't known yet - all we know is that Nintendo is looking into holographic data storage. Whether they will use it for the Wii or for a future console is still up for speculation.

   Re: Stinky_1 - 2008-08-02
 » ....

Ill bet you 10 bux and a dozen donuts this will NEVER be seen on the current wii setup. Even a model redesign that includes this option would be out of the question. Ninty usually uses technoloigy that already exists that they can use in new ways to enhance the experience. I cant see them dumping millions of dollars in r+d to get these into the wii. Especially when they just need to unlock support for higher SD cards (say 16 gb) and allow the wii complete access to those cards to use as internal memory.

Their biggest problem is that the wii is already wide open. So no matter what they come up with it will open the doors to homebrew coders and give away a LOT of secrets.

But what other choice do they have? Holographic cubes??? not for a few more years guys.
   by wiiownsps3and360 - 2008-08-02
 » it's so simple

y doesn't nintendo just allow use of SD cards in the wii menu allow for bigger cards or even add usb thumb drive support just a firmware update is needed please i hope to god they do something like this

   by NomadHeath - 2008-08-03
 » This sounds neat, but...

Does anyone actually know how this works? I mean, yeah ... 30 gigs to a terabyte. Amazing. Awesome. Whatever. But I want to know how it uses HOLOGRAMS. Freakin' GEEKTASTIC.


   Re: Silver-Tiger - 2008-08-03
 » ....

well, I don't know the exact details, but the data are stored in several layers on a disk. Kinda like an holographic image in a disk format.
Look here for more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc
   by Stinky_1 - 2008-08-03
 » ....

one way that the holgoraphic thing could be done is simply using a data "cube". Blue ray disks are already multi layers. And someone says they took a blue ray and made it even more layers and increased the storage space. So, if they can read through multi layers on a disk it would not be difficult to read through multi layers on a cube. the only difference is that the laser assembly would have to move instead of spinning the disk. I would assume that it would move the laser up and down and back and forth, so the data string would be linear in one motion.

I am not sure what advantages this has over using just a disk. I think its more for the geek factor than anything.

   by xLinkinwormx - 2008-08-04
 » well

seeing as they wont be making the disk option because reader is about $15,000 i can see them makeing the card reader either because a reader is $1800 no end user is going to pay that, and i can see the prices comeing down anytime soo so something reasonable like $100, they cant sell it for more than $200 because it would cost more than the wii its self then

   by Mister Common Sense - 2008-08-04
 » yeah right

Nintendo can't even get hard disc storage right.


   Re: Scarface88 - 2008-08-05
 » For f*ck's sake.

Nintendo havent even attempted HDD storage on the Wii; it uses flash memory. This holographic data storage is better than that anyway.

You can always tell when a 360 fanboy/complete moron is jealous.

   Re: ISOHaven - 2008-08-05
 » WTF!?!?!?!?!

That's because he doesn't know the difference between HDD, Optical, NOR, NAND, Solid State or any other form of storage. He's just a typical consumer that is ignorant of actual technology. Despite the fact he claims to have graduated from the BEST tech school.

His post is PROOF of that. Like you said, how can Nintendo not get something right of which they've never tried?
   by neomew - 2008-08-06
 » cool

i hope this will come out for the wii we got now

   by Rapfnny - 2008-08-07
 » does this give a little more info?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_memory
i dont know weather they are trying to do this or the other link showing the cd's, but i dont think they would need to make it a hvd or any other type of disc because the wii can only play dvd's it doesnt even play cd's, so that makes me think that they wil either be releasing this with the "Wii 2" or maybe a usb cube like thuing for the wii.


   Re: Rapfnny - 2008-08-07
 » I found out what could be planned.

I have the link to InPhases Holgraphic Data Storage "Disks" It shows a video of the disks and the HUGE reader maching. the disks are like umd's but the case is shaped like a square.
http://www.inphase-tech.com/media/inthebox_web.wmv
Though the reader is huge, it also showed at the of the video of pictures comming out the back of it, maybe thats why it huge, but i don't know. I'll keep looking into that.

   Re: Rapfnny - 2008-08-07
 » more info

http://www.inphase-tech.com/downloads/pdf/technology/holoBasics.pdf
http://www.inphase-tech.com/downloads/pdf/technology/techTour.pdf
http://www.inphase-tech.com/technology/tour/index.html
This explains a lot more, the machine can be alot smaller, so i guess this could go into the usb of wii, or into the making of "Wii 2"
   by Rapfnny - 2008-08-07
 » Heres a picture of i guess the current one

http://www.inphase-tech.com/products/default.asp?tnn=3 it has the info and picture of the holographic drive and disk.


   Re: Scarface88 - 2008-08-07
 » ...

Thanks for those links!

If only more users were as productive/helpful as you.

   Re: ISOHaven - 2008-08-07
 » WTF!?!?!?!?!

Ditto! Thanks for the info. Very interesting stuff.

   Re: Rapfnny - 2008-08-10
 » :D


:D


The QJ.net Network RSS Feeds
QJ Forums
PC Gaming
Sony PSP
PlayStation 3
Xbox 360
Nintendo DS
Nintendo Wii
Blog of Blogs Feed / PDA
QJ.NET RSS / PDA
Gaming Consoles Feed / PDA
Nintendo DS RSS / PDA
PlayStation 3 RSS / PDA
PSP Updates RSS / PDA
Wii RSS / PDA
Xbox 360 RSS / PDA
PC Gaming Feed / PDA
MMORPG RSS / PDA
Personal Computer Games RSS / PDA
World of Warcraft RSS / PDA
Technology Feed / PDA
Apple RSS / PDA
iPhone - iPod Touch RSS / PDA
Add QJ.NET
Add to My Yahoo!
Google Reader Subscribe with Bloglines
Add  to your Kinja digest Subscribe in NewsGator Online
Subscribe with Pluck RSS reader Add 'www.qj.net' to Newsburst from CNET News.com
Subscribe with SearchFox RSS del.icio.us www.qj.net
Add to Technorati Favorite! Add to My AOL
furl! it Stumble for Treehugger!
User Favorites - July
Most Commented
No commented articles