Guitar Hero 5, la Wii et les cartes SD

Un patch du système d'exploitation de la Wii publié par Nintendo il y a quelques mois a appris à la console à gérer les cartes SD haute capacité.

Guitar Hero 5 exploitera cette nouvelle capacité de la console, comme l'explique IGN dans un article de 2 pages sur le sujet (copié-collé ci-dessous).

Principales informations révélées par IGN :
- le jeu pourra utiliser des cartes SD de 32 Go, ce qui sera suffisant pour contenir 800 chansons d'après Activision
- il sera enfin possible de télécharger des track packs et des albums complets sur Wii (jusqu'à présent, il n'était possible que de télécharger des chansons une par une, ce qui rendait certains contenus indisponibles pour la Wii, comme l'album Death Magnetic de Metallica)
- il sera possible d'importer dans Guitar Hero 5 les chansons de Guitar Hero World Tour et Guitar Hero Greatest Hits, à un prix très réduit d'après Activision

Voilà. Dans l'autre camp, du côté de Rock Band, on attend toujours la sortie de Rock Band 2 sur Wii en Europe. Autrement dit, un éditeur se fout de la gueule des possesseurs de Wii, tandis que l'autre fait de vrais efforts spécifiques à la console de Nintendo.

Guitar Hero 5 est désormais annoncé pour le 1er septembre 2009 par Amazon.fr (précommande à 59€95).

Article complet (source IGN) :

Wii Innovation: Into the GH5 Music Store

Who needs a hard drive? SD streaming and 32 Gig support launches with Guitar Hero 5. Death to the fridge!

US, August 11, 2009 - It seems like we've had something to say about Guitar Hero dang near every day or two around the interwebs, and while I'd normally be the first to start skipping updates and resort to headline reading until the final review that's certainly not what you want to be doing on GH5 for Wii. It's true, news is breathing every few days on this game, but what's also true is that the team behind the title – Activision's own Vicarious Visions – has had a longstanding relationship with Nintendo, and every year we get not only a new Guitar Hero offering from Activision's "Nintendo crew" but also new tech that was previously unavailable.

Today's update is all about one of those features, and it's a big one. For years now we've been waiting for an expandable hard drive on Wii, complaining about fridge cleaning, and constantly harassing the Big N about where the mass storage solution was going to come from. Well steps were made back with Guitar Hero World Tour, which spearheaded the whole SD streaming concept still used in Nintendo's Virtual Console and WiiWare data management, but GH5 is the beginning of something even bigger.

Remember those high-capacity SD cards Nintendo chatted about briefly at GDC this year? They're here, and so is SD streaming. Kiss your mass storage issues goodbye. Guitar Hero 5 will kick of high-capacity cards and SD streaming, and Nintendo is backing the technology for anyone to use thereafter.

I had a chance to sit down with the guys from Vicarious Visions today and get full disclosure, Nintendo-approved "on the record" info on Guitar Hero 5's debut feature, which comes coupled with an all-new music store for the series. For Wii users this goes beyond just GH5 too, as this new tech is on the way, and Guitar Hero is just the beginning.

Wondering about DLC? Yup, all your World Tour music can be used in GH5, and it even gets an upgrade.

The Guitar Hero Music Store is going through some big changes this year, and for Wii owners it's something truly special. The list of changes and tweaks is gigantic, so rather than beating around the bush I'll just get right into it. First off, the new "News" section of Guitar Hero's main menu (literally just a fret press away when on the title screen) gives quick updates as to any new content in the GH Store. Since the Wii version of Guitar Hero 5 is always connected – more like a 360 game than a typical Wii offering as far as online infrastructure – the news page is always updated with the latest goings-on around GH5. Simply click it and you can see the latest updates. Nice.

When hitting up the store itself you'll see some huge changes. Gone is the limitation of "single track only" downloads. Full albums, track packs, and single songs can be purchased all at once on the store and will be priced accordingly with what you'd find on the other consoles. The track and album interface is pretty unique though. Say you are looking at a Smashing Pumpkins set for example. You could theoretically buy the full album or track pack (whatever Activision had available) with a single click, or you could click into the folder and see all the available tracks within that package. One touch will let you preview the song, so you can go one by one and decide what tracks you truly dig. If you like them all, go back to the full package and buy them in bulk. If you only dig a few, simply buy the single songs from within that folder and you're good to go. I've seen it in action, and it's both slick and intuitive. Along with each song and pack you also get the album art, and part-specific intensity readings so you can tell just how tough the song will be once you get it on your system.

As a nice addition to it all you can set a whole slew of songs to download as long as you hang out in the store while it runs. If you want to DL a list of 20 songs, simply select the purchases you want to make, set them all to download in a row, and let it run automatically. If you pause in the middle, turn off your system, or decide you want to quick waiting and go play a few songs for a while the available tracks will simply sit in your active downloads section and let you come back to finish them off later. This can also be used for songs you may have purchased and deleted.

Here's where things get really good for Wii owners. As I mentioned High-Capacity SD is now supported, with 32 gig cards already on the market and pretty cheap considering the amount of space you're getting. A quick search on google got me a 32 gig SD card for around $60, and if you need to go cheaper than that you can find 16's for half the price. The reason you'll want a new SD card is pretty simple; SD streaming will kick off with GH5. All the tricks used for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band in the past – leaving internal memory open– is gone. Instead, straight-up booting off the SD card is available, and that means easier downloads, larger expansions, and quicker loads when bringing in song data from the SD card into GH5.

Oh, and for those curious about what 32 gigs will truly get you, Activision has estimated that over 800+ songs can fit in that space, including stronger audio quality, all the note data, album art, any mo-cap triggers or song-specific displays, and the like. 800 songs is a whole lot of game…

So now that you've got all this space, what do you do with it? Well, I spoke on the new DLC procedures already, but there's more to it, and it comes with Activision's strive for full franchise compatibility. First off, a quick clarification on how it'll work to "import" your DLC from other versions of the game. Activision has only gone on record about World Tour and Smash Hits so far, but for those two games specifically a code on the back of your instruction booklet (20 digits) can be entered into GH5's store. Once entered, an area within the "special offers" section of the store unlocks, allowing you to pay a small fee to convert all your disc content into DLC for GH5. Activision wouldn't give any specific details on how much it would cost, but assured us that it's a small charge. After all, you already bought the games, right? The purchase instead covers the relicensing fees that come with bringing the songs to a new game, just like how Rock Band handles its import process.

WIth SD streaming and high-capacity cards the sky is the limit. 800+ songs on one SD card, and no fridge cleaning needed.

What you get is pretty impressive though. For DLC that you already have for World Tour, a free download will actually update and upgrade any already-downloaded songs for that game to work in GH5. That means that previously purchases songs will now have band moments, band member saving, and all the other GH5-exclusive game modes and additions in them. Pretty cool. As for the importing, you add that code, and the same situation applies. The songs are now ready for GH5, including all the bells and whistles of the new game, and even upping the audio quality on all the tracks for the new game. It certainly sounds worth the cheap upgrade price, considering some people have hundreds of tracks built up across World Tour, Smash Hits, and the other versions of the game which we'd assume are somehow on the way as well. That's yet to be made official by Activision though.

As the final little addition to the Guitar Hero Music Store, Vicarious ha also added in the Guitar Hero "Rock Archive" which acts as a Wii-specific data management system. From this selection you can look at everything on your SD card and internal memory, move any files around you want, and quickly transfer tracks from place to place all within GH5. Most people won't need to use this, since you'll buy a new high-capacity card, download everything from here on out onto it, and forget about it, but for those that already have song data saved on their Wii internal memory, or for people that download a few tracks when GH5 comes out and then decide later to purchase a SD card the Rock Archive is a quick and easy way to manage your songs. These can also be transferred either one by one or as a batch. Pretty cool.

There's obviously a lot going on with Guitar Hero 5, and if you're a hardcore Wii owner this tech reaches beyond GH5 and well into the rest of the system's future. High-capacity cards means a pretty cheap solution that's actually more versatile than a full-on hard drive, and the now-added streaming capabilities – making its debut in Guitar Hero 5 – squashes any and all storage issues Wii has struggled with. We sound like a broken record, but it's true: When it comes to pushing Wii, the team at Vicarious Visions is right there on the front lines, and the company's collaboration with Nintendo is bringing nothing but good things to console owners.

We'll have more on GH5 as the game nears release.