http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9877&Itemid=59

By Kris Graft

"Come on Nintendo, we need a hard drive," Harmonix design director told Next-Gen sibling CVG in an interview about the matter. "That's what we want. The whole problem is there's nowhere to store it.

"If the platform could do it, we'd jump on it", he said. "It's something that we championed to Nintendo, that we'd like to do it. Who knows what will happen down the line, I don't know what's coming down the line, but that's the reason there's no DLC in Wii Rock Band"

Wii currently only has 512MB of internal storage, and an SD card slot for expansion. Single songs for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Rock Band are around 30-40MB, and three-song packs often exceed 100MB.

Harmonix confirmed last month that Rock Band would be coming to Wii in the US and Canada on June 22 for $170.

(Xbox 360 Rock Band pictured.)

Its good to see some third party developers put the pressure on Nintendo. The faster there is a storage solution, the better!

Would be nice to see WiiWare developers jumping on the HDD bandwagon too. What's good for Harmonix in this regard, will be great for WiiWare developers, since the stock SD card can't handle very many WiiWare games.

For that I find Nintendo the biggest fools around, sorry to put it like this. The lack on about almost everything you can imagine. Took ages before WIIWare came, no harddrive... and name up the rest.... All I can say is: it would be about time!!

hmm that will add up in Wii price. The hard drive wont be free. Then some developers might require the use of a hard drive on future games and force people to buy the hard drives while others will not be able to play those games. This will cause confusion...

Em.... I called it bullshit!!!!!!

Wiiware Karaoke with 20,000 downloadable song with 1,000 additional songs added every month!

http://wii.ign.com/articles/863/863040p1.html

& is Hard Drive the reason why Rockband Wii don't have motion-sensing, online battle and wireless feature like GH3 did?????????

What a big fat stupid bullshitter.........! They just want to port unsuccessful PS2 version to Wii for quick money!!! They thought Wii's owner would be idiot enough to buy that!

A hard drive would be nice, but there is plenty of space on SD cards for down-loadable content.

 Seriously, it pisses me off that people are ignorant like this.

 Nintendo just came from being a much smaller company into one of the most sought-after in the world. They went from the company that makes Gamecube and Gameboy Advance to the company that makes the Wii and DS.

 With that enormous factor of very recent growth, and the fact that videogames are all they do so they can't just throw around money, Nintendo has to do things slowly. There is a LOT going on for them, and they can't afford to (1) make mistakes, or (2) just throw all the employees they want onto a project.

 It takes time for them to be able to do things like that, especially when you've got to realize, they're also in the process of developing both the next DS and the next Wii, as well as any potential redesigns of either. That's a LOT to have in the workings when you're busy just trying to keep up with the sudden popularity of both.

 WiiWare, hard-drive support, worthwhile online, etc, all are things that you've got to be certain you're doing the way you want before you just throw 'em out there when you're in Nintendo's shoes. Granted, I'm frustrated it's taken this long too, but seriously. You don't know what kind of situation Nintendo's in and all the things that are going on behind their doors. I can imagine they've got TONS more than I just listed, and then some.

Blah Blah Blah Hard Drive.

What is the reason for no online(GHIII has online)?

Oh... right... it's a lazy PS2 port.

If storage is so important, why didn't they use the SD card adapter to save the songs to?

4GB may only be 120 songs (for the XBox 360 or PS3 possibly more for the Wii assuming graphical assets are also downloaded), or 40 3 song packs but that hardly seems to be too much of a limiting factor for this game.

Basically Harmonix is just looking for excuses as to why they are producing a third rate port of the game.