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How Much Memory Do Nintendo Wii Games Take?

A weakness of the Nintendo Wii is the lack of memory available for players to save games and game data. While the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 offer hard drives with sizes of 60 to 120 gigabytes, the Wii comes with little internal memory and the best method of obtaining more is to buy additional memory cards, or SD cards, that have as much as 32 GB of space. It is important to manage your memory (Nintendo refers to storage space as "blocks") to maximize your playing experience on the Wii.

Game Save Files
- Some games require little memory to save stopping points and user data while others require enormous amounts. For example, Super Mario Galaxy saves only use one block while Super Smash Bros. Brawl saves take 128. This should encourage you to erase older game saves for games you no longer play to free up hard drive space.
SD Card
- These small cards are the same type used in many digital cameras or cell phones. If you perform the automatic updates on your console and have Wii Menu 4.0, you will have the ability to use high capacity SD cards with capacity of 32 GB. Launch games and Nintendo channels directly from the SD card.
Virtual Console Games
- Download a number of classic console games onto your Wii through the Virtual Console service. Block requirements vary, but in general the older the game, the less memory it requires. For example, the NES title Ninja Gaiden needs 23 blocks of memory while the newer WiiWare game Mega Man 9 requires 66 blocks.
Nintendo Channels
- A number of channels you can download for the Wii, such as the Nintendo Channel, offers videos that preview upcoming Nintendo game products, and the Internet Channel, which allows you to browse the Internet on the Wii. The blocks that each channel requires also varies, from 121 for the Nintendo Channel to 54 to the Everybody Votes channel, which allows users to participate in surveys.
GameCube Memory Cards
- The Wii also allows owners to play older GameCube games and has slots for two GameCube memory cards. The number of blocks each game save requires is different for each game. An advantage is that GameCube game saves only work on the memory cards so they do not require space on the Wii hard drive.

Nintendo Wii