| PlaystaionGamer said: how Expensive are HDD's really these days for big companies like Nintendo.. COME ON! Wont memory cards make it easier for hackers though? what disks does the WiiU take? do you have to instal the games? |
HDDs are currently the most expensive single component in any console being produced.
While I'm not one to praise Nintendo's hardware for any other reasons than characteristic "Nintendo durability" and the company's ability to use mature, lower priced technology to create hardware that is greater than its sum of parts (at a profit), from a business perspective, going with internal flash memory standard is good business.
NAND flash memory in low quanties is cheap. Minimum size HDDs are still pricey components. 8GB of NAND memory is well under $10. The lowest capacity HDD currently being produced costs many times more.
As long as Nintendo allows for the use of any USB based external HDD (no mandatory proprietary specially formatted "Nintendo brand" HDDs) to expand storage for game downloads and the like, what it means is a lower standard price for the console without additional cost for budget minded consumers who in all likelihood already have a USB HDD.
Installs will be an issue with developers though as the base 8GB internal memory essentially eliminates the practicality of mandatory installs. It will likely be the same issue developers had with the Xbox 360, and were forced to work around.
