What you need to know about cloud backup

Gamers may soon see some major storage capacity changes made to the Wii and Xbox 360, with Nintendo thought to be working on a storage option, and Microsoft poised to unveil a new capacity model.

Laurent Fischer, Nintendo’s European MD, said in a report by Gamesindustry.biz that Nintendo has identified a storage-related “issue” and that it’s “working on a solution”.

But Fisher wasn’t willing to say much more, beyond stating that there’s "definitely there's no plan to issue... an external hard drive for the Wii".

He added that “there’s nothing we can say beyond this” because he wasn’t privy to Nintendo’s plans – despite working there – and because such advances are decided over in Japan.

So what’s Nintendo really saying? An external hard drive will never be released for the Wii, or simply that one’s not being developed at this point in time? Or is Nintendo hinting that online storage could be the way forward? Only time will tell.

Microsoft’s plans, on the other hand, appear clearer cut, at least according to an insider citedby Trusted Reviews. The unnamed mole has claimed that “Microsoft has decided internally” to release a 60GB version of the console at the E3 gaming conference, which takes place next month.

Precious little else is known by the source, but such an unveiling doesn’t seem unlikely because it would help Microsoft add fresh flavour to the Xbox 360 capacity options currently available. The relatively small capacity 60GB machine could even be used to replace the storage-free Arcade model.

It’s also been rumoured by Jesse Divnich, an analyst at market watcher Electronic Entertainment Design and Research, that Microsoft will announce price cuts for the Xbox 360 range at E3. The console’s UK prices have already been cut, so it’s expected that if Microsoft does confirm a cut at E3, then they will only apply to the US.

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