Here comes the new fridge, same as the old fridge
Turns out I jumped to conclusions just a bit on the SD card update for the Wii. When I heard that games from the SD card were loaded into the Wii's flash memory, I thought it was a system similar to single cart play on the GBA and the DS, where the game is basically loaded into RAM and played from there.
What actually happens is when a game is loaded from the SD card, the Wii actually creates a temporary copy of the game in its internal memory. This is why there seems to be no performance lost when playing a game off of an SD card, because you're not actually playing it off the SD card.
To be fair, this still solves a lot of problems. It means the only data you technically have to keep on your Wii is save data, and since there is only one temp file it's not your Wii is secretly going to copy all of your games back to its internal memory.
However, it doesn't change the fact that the Wii still only has 512 MB of internal storage. That limit is staring in the face of every title that has the potential to come down the WiiWare or Virtual Console pipeline. The latter is going to become even more of a problem if Nintendo decides to add more CD-based systems to their catalog (the only one on there currently is the TurboGrafx-CD, though you wouldn't know it from the Wii Shop Channel itself).
Also, here's a theoretical doomsday scenario: instead of you filling up your Wii with downloaded games, you fill it up with saved data. I bet you think that's highly unlikely, and for the most part you would be right. While there are some games with a heavy save footprint (I'm looking at you Super Smash Bros. Brawl), these are generally few and far between. The one thing that has a potential to cause a memory bloat is Downloadable Content for WiiWare games.
To the best of my knowledge, there are only three WiiWare games that support DLC (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, Space Invaders Get Even, and Alien Crush Returns). While I can't speak from experience, I can say that all three episode packs for SIGE weigh in at a hefty 367 blocks of memory, which is more then the game itself takes up. Since this is technically save data, it must kept in the Wii's internal memory for the game to access it. So it's entirely possible for someone to fill up their Wii's internal memory with DLC, and even if that's not technically possible now that doesn't change the fact that it could in the future.
So in conclusion: no company knows better how to build up my hopes and expectations, and then smash them down with the maliciousness of a fourth-grade bully then good old Nintendo.
What actually happens is when a game is loaded from the SD card, the Wii actually creates a temporary copy of the game in its internal memory. This is why there seems to be no performance lost when playing a game off of an SD card, because you're not actually playing it off the SD card.
To be fair, this still solves a lot of problems. It means the only data you technically have to keep on your Wii is save data, and since there is only one temp file it's not your Wii is secretly going to copy all of your games back to its internal memory.
However, it doesn't change the fact that the Wii still only has 512 MB of internal storage. That limit is staring in the face of every title that has the potential to come down the WiiWare or Virtual Console pipeline. The latter is going to become even more of a problem if Nintendo decides to add more CD-based systems to their catalog (the only one on there currently is the TurboGrafx-CD, though you wouldn't know it from the Wii Shop Channel itself).
Also, here's a theoretical doomsday scenario: instead of you filling up your Wii with downloaded games, you fill it up with saved data. I bet you think that's highly unlikely, and for the most part you would be right. While there are some games with a heavy save footprint (I'm looking at you Super Smash Bros. Brawl), these are generally few and far between. The one thing that has a potential to cause a memory bloat is Downloadable Content for WiiWare games.
To the best of my knowledge, there are only three WiiWare games that support DLC (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, Space Invaders Get Even, and Alien Crush Returns). While I can't speak from experience, I can say that all three episode packs for SIGE weigh in at a hefty 367 blocks of memory, which is more then the game itself takes up. Since this is technically save data, it must kept in the Wii's internal memory for the game to access it. So it's entirely possible for someone to fill up their Wii's internal memory with DLC, and even if that's not technically possible now that doesn't change the fact that it could in the future.
So in conclusion: no company knows better how to build up my hopes and expectations, and then smash them down with the maliciousness of a fourth-grade bully then good old Nintendo.