Nintendo dismisses Wii HDD rumour

Nintendo has dismissed reports that it's going to release an external hard disk drive for the Wii so that people can transfer some of their stuff off the machine's internal flash drive, but it has confirmed that the DS is about to get a voice communication headset.

Japanese magazine Gamelabo claimed that Nintendo Japan executives had met recently to discuss the hard disk drive, but Nintendo UK told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz that that's "pure rumour and speculation".

External storage is handy for Wii owners who like to buy games via Virtual Console, as the 512MB internal drive can quickly fill up. At the moment, users can invest in an SD flash-card to help store some of their software and save-game files away from the main system.

Meanwhile, Nintendo told gi.biz that reports Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be released alongside a headset peripheral for online voice chat when they arrive in the US next month were true.

The company couldn't confirm plans for a European headset release, but it seems highly likely we'll see one when the games go on sale later this year.