Streaming Video Service Coming To the Wii

Gamasutra reports that Nintendo is partnering with a company called Dentsu to "distribute original streaming video programming via the Wii, with a 2009 launch confirmed in Japan, and an eye towards a later Western launch." According to a press statement, some of the videos will be free, and some will cost money. This will help to answer concerns that the Wii was lagging behind the other major consoles in video content.

Comments

The beeb's been doing it for months...

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC iPlayer - on the Wii!

Wait, what?

[giantweevil]

Can't you already do this with the Opera browser for the Wii?

I know I can get on Youtube/Veoh/etc and watch stuff.

How can a pay service compete with that?

Re:Wait, what?

[Myopic]

It could compete in lots of ways. You can't think of any? It could compete on content, format, quality, convenience...

Re:Wait, what?

[giantweevil]

It could try, but most people will take the free option above paying for anything.

Re:Wait, what?

[BikeHelmet]

I think a service like Hulu could compete quite successfully. "Pay" services(Hulu is actually ad-supported) usually have better quality video than free services, and earlier access to content.

You can always torrent high-quality vids, but I don't see that feature making it into the official firmware. Free ad-supported 480p streams is the next best thing.

And besides, many people don't mind paying a bit for the convenience these services bring, especially if they have good steaming quality.

I imagine if they had something like Hulu available on the Wii, then it'd be really popular. It certainly beats youtube when it comes to quality and availability of copyrighted content.

Re:Wait, what?

[funkatron]

Hulu still need to kick their legal team out of the server room. The technology exists to stream video to my location so why should lawyers be allowed to fuck it up?

Re:Wait, what?

[captjc]

Mostly, but I don't know about everyone else, but when I watch any video of a decent length (usually more then 10 minutes), I get "memory buffer full" (or something like that) errors.

I want to know how they plan on caching the videos when with a few (one to three) Wiiware / VC games and a average amount of savefiles practically fills up the Wiis memory. I don't even want to think about what would happen if you are a VC junkie or play Rock Band / Guitar Hero with DLC. Caching to the ram gives less than 88MB with full Graphics and main memory utilization, which is nothing for streaming videos of any decent quality.

I like my Wii, but what is really the point. The system just doesn't seem to have been designed for this in mind.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting that it's that same legal team that got the content into the server room in the first place.

Re:Wait, what?

[LeninZhiv]

You can play Guitar Hero DLC from an SD card, but yeah, I agree with you that this doesn't really sound like something that fits in with the Wii universe. Unlike the HD consoles, both of which set out to be media centers. When the Wii launched they were explicit that they did not want it to be one, which is why it doesn't play DVD movies even though it has a DVD drive.

Re:Wait, what?

[benwaggoner]

Well, hard to speculate without you saying what your location is :).

I've worked with digital content distribution in a variety of markets.

But Hulu absolutely needs to do georestriction, since all content licensing contracts with the studios are for specific regions (USA for Hulu, of course). And don't blame this on the studios themselves; the movies are financed by partners in different region pre-paying for exclusive rights. So in many cases the USA-based studios don't have any right to distribute that content in other territories. Hulu's contracts with the studios absolutely will have specific requirements for how they handle georestrictions.

The TV networks took a good 10-15 years to work out the contracts to let them distribute current shows on the internet. In the past, content was created by indepdendent production companies, who licensed it for first broadcast to a network, who then distributed it to their corporate-owned and independently-owned affiliates, and then after a few years the original production company sold them into syndication directly. Now we see the networks funding their programming entirely or in partnership, so they're able to get the rights determined in advance. But it can be a big legal quagmire for older shows created before the current market existed.

It's frustrating how long it's taking, certainly, but these are thorny problems that require a whole lot of stuff to be renegotiated. And it's not just the video; music rights to popular music on the soundtracks can also be a huge challenge as well.

Re:Wait, what?

[Jorophose]

which is why it doesn't play DVD movies even though it has a DVD drive.

Which is nice in a way, to be honest; the Wii's DVD drive goes at a steady pace and so should have a longer life time (not to mention the flash storage).

It really makes me rage though that VC titles won't run off SD cards. I know they're worried about AverageDick loading his piratebay ROMs on an SD card into his Wii, but geez you'd think at this point they could figure out some form of minor-to-moderate encryption/checksum system to only allow Wii-bought games to run and let everyone go home happy...

Re:Wait, what?

[AnyoneEB]

The DRM is not an issue. Virtual console games are encrypted and tied to the Wii they were bought on. You can copy them to an SD card, you just have to copy them back onto the Wii to actually play them, which seems quite silly.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

well they need to end this bullshit now. the internet is global and should be treated as such without making up imaginary borders. all licenses should be global. same bullshit with region codes and what-not. this is definately not progress. if it means that the whole business has to go back to square one, so be it. until then, you can't be mad at people torrenting and such.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

$1 to $4? Funk dat! I can watch these movies for free on Hulu.

I'm looking much more forward to PlayOn! which will offer access to Hulu and other online video sites. Only $30 one time.

http://www.themediamall.com/playon

Sweet

[miffo.swe]

The Wii is perfect for this kind of distribution. Using a PC just plain sucks and rarely works without major hickups. When i want to see a movie it damn sure must work without any major glitches.

Quality wise i dont see any problems. Today i gladly watch content in very low resolution without any hesitation. As long as the stuff is encoded well and dont expose artifacts and bad sound im all good. HDTV isnt something i have ever longed for, not since DVD started handling panning well enough.

Re:Sweet

[NothingMore]

What makes the wii better suited for distribution of video over the Xbox 360 especially since the 360 has netflix already in its camp?

Re:Sweet

[Goffee71]

There are about an extra 10 million Wii's out there, but streaming is hardly a quality format - so why bother, especially if the content will just be the dreaded 'original programming'

Re:Sweet

[Myopic]

I don't know, but it's a non-sequitur. The Wii doesn't have to be better than the 360, because the only people for whom that is a relevant question are the small number of people who own and frequently use both systems.

Re:Sweet

[miffo.swe]

"Examples or stfu"

Mind you im talking about ordinary people here, not geeks like me who almost gets an orgasm by bootstrapping Gentoo. Try if you have the ability to put yourself in the shoes of a normal parent whos just gotten an hour over to watch a flick. Someone with a life, maybe even kids and that do not have hours upon hours to spend on tinkering, reading and researching something. Anything that demands his or hers attention/time is a problem from their viewpoint.

A Wii rarely demands you to install or configure a video driver to work with your TV.
A Wii dont start to studder in the middle of my movie because some antivirus scanning starts or some other task churns away in the background.
A Wii isnt susceptible to virii or trojans and i have yet to see one that doesnt work or demands someone coming in and cleaning it of said virii.
A Wii doesnt have hundreds of different colliding purpouses, it does a small subset and does them well.
A Wii has a simple interface that most people can handle without much troubles. Cant say the same about any computer i have seen at all, ever.

Re:Sweet

[grumbel]

The main adventage simply is that a Wii is connected to your TV, a PC most of the time isn't.

Re:Sweet

[miffo.swe]

"What makes the wii better suited for distribution of video over the Xbox 360 especially since the 360 has netflix already in its camp?"

The Wii is technically not in any way more suited for video distribution, its just much more common than the 360.

Re:Sweet

[ucblockhead]

True. On the other hand, you can now stream Netflix movies on your Tivo. I'm not sure why anyone would prefer a Wii over a Tivo...

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "Tivo only exists in the USA"?

Re:Sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS any mid-range black-friday-bargain-price laptop with Windows XP made within the last 3-5 years should play any common video fine.

* Video Drivers come preinstalled. Codecs get installed automatically by any recent media program. VLC doesn't need them at all.
* Not usually a problem.
* Nothing to do with playing videos.
* irrelevant. A system is only as good as its software. There is plenty of good media programs for windows, mac and linux.
* The interface for playing media is fairly straightforward. Find media, open media, play media. Besides most PCs made within the last 3-5 years have come with a media center program. Windows Media Center Edition replaced Windows XP Home as the standard version installed on most consumer computers years ago. Vista comes with Vista Media Center, and Apple Computers comes with Front Row.

Re:Sweet

[mrchaotica]

My computer monitor is significantly better than my TV anyway!

Advertising

[Anonymous Coward]

Dentsu is Japan's largest advertising company, with a 55% share of the ad market. If they are teaming with them, the 'some of the content is free' and 'original programming' in the quote should be taken as 'ad sponsored' or 'ads'.

What about the quality?

[dmesg0]

Quality of the video output on Wii really sucks, it doesn't even have an HDMI output, and its component output is worse than any other piece of equipment I have. How are they going to compete with other services, especially in Japan, where 1125i output is the norm for years?

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quality of the video output on Wii really sucks

It's called Standard Definition, which is well beyond good enough for most people and is what most people have.

Re:What about the quality?

[dmesg0]

First, it's worse than any upscaling DVD or even most progressive scan DVDs.

Second, in Japan HDTV is more common than anywhere else (tens of millions subscribers), and free ISDB translations started in 2003. Once you are used to HDTV, it's hard to go back to SDTV.

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am used to HDTV and have no trouble going back to SDTV. Maybe it's just because I've been playing PC games in "HD"(buzzword alert) for years and don't see high-resolution output as such a big deal.

Re:What about the quality?

[dmesg0]

My Wii is connected to 50" plasma. I can't stand the quality, so it's mostly gathering dust now.

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Wii is connected to a 64" Hitachi plasma display, looks just fine to me if not as clear as HD. I use it to play SNES games all the time.

Re:What about the quality?

[WiiVault]

Did you get the composite cables? 480p is just fine for me on a similar rig. Unless you mistakenly bought a Wii thinking it would output 360 graphics, I don't see what the problem is. Its pretty clearly not HD.

Re:What about the quality?

[dmesg0]

No, I replaced the default composite cables with better component ones. Almost no quality improvement after switching to 480p. The quality of most games is really hurting my eyes, everything looks very aliased (staircases instead of lines). Playing with sharpness on the TV doesn't help.

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd diagnose your problem as being to stat oriented to have fun.

This is a common problem among gamers who do not actually care if an old NES game is fun becuase of the graphics.

Your pleasure is not found in the actual gaming, but in the looking at the game.

Re:What about the quality?

[jellomizer]

You do realize in United States 1080i has ben the norm for years too. And just recently TVs are now 1080p 55 Pixels height (about the size of an Icon) isn't that much of an advancement. It is more on what the broadcast standards are in the area. Most people can't tell the difference between 480i and 720p and 1080i and 1080p for you to tell the difference between 1080i and 1125i you would be watching the pixels more then the movie, and have a really good eye for detail.

The Wii is no XBox or PS3 but it does have enough juice to do the job. The 480i which is the same as most DVD players output. Which gives a rather clear picture. It is no Blueray but it is clean and clear and you can see what is happening without it looking like you are watching life threw a screen. The Wii just needs to decode video in real time, that is the heavy processing. But it is just 2d stuff. Most legal streaming media is at 480 or less even if you have a box that can handle HDTV the size of the data is still to big to get on the internet or most connections.

Re:What about the quality?

[UserChrisCanter4]

1125i and 1080i are the same thing. OP is just using different terminology. Much like 480i is actually 525i but has some extra lines that aren't used, 1125i is the actual, full range of scan lines in HDTV of which 1080 are actively used.

It's just a difference in terminology. In fact, if you look in the manuals for TVs that talk about 1125i, they'll usually say something like "Supported resolutions: 1125i (1080i)." I've only ever heard of the term being used in Japan. Apparently one of the old analog HD broadcast standards there (MUSE) used the term 1125i to describe their broadcasts. Now, everyone still has to use the term for fear of looking like the worse product. Think of it as the TV version of calling a billion bytes a gigabyte in the hard drive world; the company that doesn't will look like a worse product to the uninformed masses.

Re:What about the quality?

[DigitalCrackPipe]

Consider getting a video processor (and connect with component or HDMI from there to the TV). Good ones would improve the quality of most inputs, including analog TV. Cartoons on analog TV are my biggest complaint on my projector, as I can see the interlace lines. I haven't settled on a processor yet, as they are expensive if you get a good one. If your TV/Projector is like mine (and I think all are), it upscales inputs to its native resolution. Built-in video processors on anything but very high-end equipment are seldom on par with dedicated video processors. If the input is the proper resolution, no upscaling/downscaling occurs and no image degradation occurs.

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

In summary, Slashdot would like you to spend hundreds of dollars on expensive electronics to make the Wii almost comparable to the Xbox 360 or PS3.

Re:What about the quality?

[WiiVault]

Wait you mean the PS360 have innovative motion controls and new types of games, not just loads of FPS's that haven't changed since the mid 90's except for the overly shinny plastic look of everything? Wow man, I want one of them. If you don't think that the next gen every machine will be a Wii knockoff you are nuts. When the Wii outsells the others COMBINED you can see which machine has really captured the imagination of gamers and non gamers alike. If you are satisfied with subpar control straight out of 1998 fine, but some of us want innovation.

Re:What about the quality?

[WiiVault]

Do you have similar problems with other 480P sources or just the Wii? I find the 480p of the Wii to be better than the X-Box 1 or GC, and certainly better than the PS2 which doesn't do 480p. Also anytime a TV is hurting my eyes, it seems to have to do with sitting too close. I cant think of low rez video ever doing that, and I have watched lots of streaming, and VHS in my life.

Re:What about the quality?

[grumbel]

The output of the Wii is far worse when it comes to games (no anti-aliasing, no motion blur) then it would be with video, yet people still buy the thing like crazy. So I doubt that it would matter much. Anyway, I think the bigger problem would be storage, Wii's 512MB are tiny, you would have to stream everything and you couldn't even buffer a larger part of the movie temporary.

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize in United States 1080i has ben the norm for years too.

No. 480i is currently the norm and will be for at least a few years now.

Re:What about the quality?

[Jorophose]

Is it even worth going up to component for the Wii? I mean, the cable is only like 3$-4$, but will the progressive scan mode help out or just smooth things out that I didn't see in the first place?

(720p TV here)

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wii ships with composite.
You meant COMPONENT.

Re:What about the quality?

[CronoCloud]

and certainly better than the PS2 which doesn't do 480p.

Wrong, the PS2 is quite capable of doing 480p, 720p or 1080i over component.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Progressive_Scan_PS2_Games/

Re:What about the quality?

[jellomizer]

Most of the shows I have been watching are at 1080i... If you are thinking about broadcast TV over the air then you are using a dead technology.

Re:What about the quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not slashdot's fault he picked a projector without upscaling support. Even my cheap 780p projector clears up interlacing lines and upscales nicely. I can even use my N64 on it to play 320*240 games without complaint (blurry textures, but that's in the source material) and they're still fun!

Why don't wii's play dvds?

[n3tcat]

I mean really this seems like the most obvious feature the wii should have had by default. They are targeting the families that can't afford bigger systems, and they apparently wanted a smaller system that didnt take a ton of space.

so by eliminating the family dvd player, they accomplish both...

so why didn't they?

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why they don't do so by default, but just for the record: MPlayer on Wii Homebrew plays DVDs just fine.

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[Anonymous Coward]

They saved a large amount of cost by using an inferior drive system. There have been user mods to the Wii that have allowed it to be converted to a DVD player, but the drive system always wears out within a few months of regular DVD play. Google "wii dvd" and within the first five results you'll see youtube how-to's and sites dedicated to this 'hack' of the system's dvd drive.

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Wii, like all Nintendo hardware, is built using cheap off the shelf components as Nintendo need a good profit margin on launch - they can't afford to take a hit on every console like Sony and Microsoft when it's their core business. Not paying to license the MPEG-2 codec was probably one of many cost cutting schemes they implemented, and I can't think of anyone who would be buying a Wii who wouldn't already own a DVD player.

However, I don't see why they don't add some kind of cinema channel which plays DVDs/VCDs to the Wii Store, or possibly implement such playback into a yet to ship video streaming channel.

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[DigitalCrackPipe]

They are targeting the families that can't afford bigger systems

Not as their main focus. There's a huge segment of their market that doesn't want a 360 or PS3. The focus of the Wii is different, and it covers demographics that aren't touched or satisfied at all by the other systems.

I could afford all three if I gamed enough to feel like spending the money. The Wii got me to buy my first console in over a decade. It's been worth the money.

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why no DVD player? Licensing the code to be able to play DVD's means the price goes up. Problems with the code in the DVD player to handle odd DVD's, cost goes up. Support calls because guys with scratched DVDs complain the Wii can't play them. Support calls because a new copy protection scheme is incompatible with the Wii. RMA's as a result of the same issue. RMA's because the Wii's general use goes up significantly as a DVD player and wears out quicker. The expectations of a $250 unit are somewhat higher than your $29 blue light special.

That would be my guess as to the why. I still don't like it though. I'd like to see DVD player as an online download such as Opera is. If I want it, let me pay extra for it. The many whom don't they can choose not to pay for it.

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that everyone who has a DVD player probably owns one already.

If the Wii was your first console in a decade, then it is likely to be your last as well. The Wii proved that people do not need HD graphics, Blu-Rays worth of cutscenes, or mult-disc slogfests like you see on the PS3 and 360. Instead, they want simple games, with direct manipulation controls. The Wii provided all this, complete with a way to indulge your nostalgia by downloading older titles.

The problem? Nintendo flattened peoples expectations for a console. The massive technological leap from the PS2 to the PS3 was, from a sales standpoint, unneeded. But where does that leave Nintendo? There is no customer base who wants a Wii 2... casual gamers are happy with limited graphics and controls, kids will enjoy anything you give them, and Nintendo has effectively alienated its die-hard fan base by approving mini-game compilation after mini-game compilation, while failing to release either new franchises, or enough new releases of existing brands. That, combined with the lackluster critical response to certain titles (eg, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Wario), the been-there-done-that nature of others (Metroid Prime 3, Smash Brothers), or the fact that the GameCube version of one of the Wii's signature titles (Zelda) is considered superior, shows that as long as Nintendo is generating profits in the short term, they just don't care about the future. That will come to hurt them, especially as the Nintendo generation ages out of the prime game spending demographics, and the PlayStation, and later XBox generations move in. In ten years, I can see Nintendo being remembered as a has-been, like Atari, or worse, as a producer of gimmicky hardware like Tiger was in the 90s.

Nintendo really needs to put its long-term prospects in order. As it is, the Wii is an evolutionary dead end, with a library that makes the GameCube's look excellent by comparison. The DS offers a way forward, but at the same time, Sony is clearly making headway with the PSP's downloadable games and content. Nintendo is definitely the portable king, but things are nowhere near what they were in the GB/GBA days.

Re:Why don't wii's play dvds?

[benhattman]

If the Wii was your first console in a decade, then it is likely to be your last as well. The Wii proved that people do not need HD graphics, Blu-Rays worth of cutscenes, or mult-disc slogfests like you see on the PS3 and 360. Instead, they want simple games, with direct manipulation controls. The Wii provided all this, complete with a way to indulge your nostalgia by downloading older titles.

The problem? Nintendo flattened peoples expectations for a console. The massive technological leap from the PS2 to the PS3 was, from a sales standpoint, unneeded. But where does that leave Nintendo? There is no customer base who wants a Wii 2...

The difficulty of PS3s selling against PS2s has demonstrated the point about better graphics not being very valuable better than the Wii did.

But, I think you entirely misunderstand what the Wii does provide. It (along with the DS, and Guitar Hero) presents the first fresh gaming experience since the NES/Sega Master System days. It didn't prove that there is no demand for HD graphics; rather that there is more demand for innovative game play.

Nintendo has no future as soon as they stop innovating (almost happened with the gamecube). The same is true for MSFT and Sony. If the PS4 or XBox720(?) offer only improved graphics they will prove to be very expensive gambles that risk losing massive money for their respective companies. Oh, wait...I guess that happened this generation.

Sad

[ZekoMal]

It's sad, how desperate the Sony and Xbox360 fanboys are to prove that the Wii is falling behind.

Nevermind that the Wii has some online gameplay (keep in mind that most of the online gameplay games available to PS3 and Xbox360 are war/sports games), that it has had free internet browsing almost from the beginning, with a good enough zoom to get almost full screen video on youtube with great streaming; it's not -HD-, so it clearly sucks.

I laugh at this. I really do. I didn't buy a game system to -cough- GO ON THE INTERNET AND WATCH VIDEOS. I bought a game system to -gasp- PLAY GAMES. If I had wanted to play Halo 3 online, I would have bought an Xbox360 and gone online; but I don't. I want to play Zelda; I want to play Metroid Prime.

Call me old school, but goddammit people, why is the Wii the equivalent to Windows Vista? Oooo scary, it doesn't have HD video. Wanna know something else? You don't pay extra to go online.

I think that video gamers aren't video gamers anymore. They're buying game systems to browse the internet. They're buying game systems to watch movies. They're buying game systems to listen to music. It seems as though gamers don't want video games; they want a tiny bit of Halo 3 to go with their movies.

And btw, I noticed a comment stating that the video quality is so poor on their 50" plasma that they shut it off. I have a 42" plasma...so does that added 8" really just -destroy- the quality? Video quality is great-unless you are talking about youtube videos, in which case that is youtube.

If you want great video quality, buy a PS3. If you want great online gameplay, buy an Xbox360 and pay the subscription costs. If you want to play new games, involving more interacting than pressing 3 buttons for 5 hours as your ass gets bigger, buy a Wii. Simple as that.

When I'm playing Wii Fit, I'm not going "Ooooo these damn graphics are so terrible, how angry they make me" while I am trying to beat my hula hoop score.

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with a great portion of what you say, the Wii also has the inferior game library. For example, what you describe at the end (hula hoop) isn't a game, but some god-awful simulation crap. The ABSTRACTION to button pushing is a lot of what makes gaming fun -- the removal from reality.

Re:Sad

[ZekoMal]

God-awful simulation crap?

I disagree. I haven't been able to find a way to enjoy ANY holiday with my family, because all they do is sit around and talk about what happened 30 years ago. Playing Wii Fit gives them something to laugh at: each other. It's fun, it gets them all working together. No 50 year old wants to watch you beat Gears of War, trust me. They might be fascinated by the graphics for 20-30 minutes, but they won't watch for long, and they can't grasp it as quickly if you let them try.

And I'm sorry, but the Wii's 'inferior' game library sure beats having nothing but 'M for mature' war games that have 3 differing features; yah, the changes in storyline are drastic, but the gameplay is nearly identical. Arguably, being able to choose from Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, or Zelda makes for a wider variety.

But, even more than that, it has backwards compatibility. PS3 opted to phase it out. So you get all of the gamecube games, plus one more: N64, NES, SNES, SEGA, and a slew of older systems. Yes, you have to pay for them, but it certainly beats playing it in ROM format on the computer-or dusting off the old system itself.

So yes, tell me again, why does the Wii library suck? Oh yeah, not enough war games. We need more of those. Less creative, new, differing games. Those blow. We need Halo 4, we need Guitar Hero 37, we need Fallout 9.

Re:Sad

[mtutty]

AC above is clearly an idiot. The abstraction is a neccessary evil, not a feature. Motion-sensing controls and peripherals (like the Wii Fit board) give the user more intuitive interaction with the game. This is where game developers (and non-133t gamers) WANT to go - it's not some degradation of "pure" gaming design.

Re:Sad

[Five Bucks!]

You have a point regarding the abstraction of motion to buttons, but the AC pointing out the inferior game library has merit.

If you look at the shelf of Wii games, most of them are minigame compilations that take only a few quick months to produce and develop.

The original excuse was that, since the minigame compilations are so quick to produce, naturally there will be more of them in the early months following Wii launch. Well, the years have passed and the shovelware still flows -- the decent releases have not materialized in significant numbers.

People always exclaim that the Wii is for casual gamers whereas PS3 and 360 are for hardcore. I don't buy that argument, because it's the third party companies pushing out the games and they have the capacity to pander to both hardcore and casual audiences.

I don't see why my personal Wii game library can't contain WarioWare AND a few (quality) war games.

I honestly just feel that the Wii is coasting on hype and novelty. And that works for Nintendo's bottom line where cash is king... but as a gamer and a former Nintendo advocate, I've slipped through their hands. I bought a Wii a year-and-a-half ago; I sold it before Xmas.

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's okay to like the Wii. Whatever floats your boat. We have one in the office and it was used for about 3 weeks before the novelty wore off. The hardware is a piece of shit and the graphics blow. We play with the PS3 now.

Re:Sad

[Lumpy]

I simply laugh in the face of the ps3 and Xbox360 fanbois.

They claim this and that...

I point out it's no problem to buy a xbox360 or Ps3 on xmas eve, yet a Wii and Wiifit have been sold out everywhere for over a month and will continue to be sold out till mid january.

The Wii outsells the other two combined without effort... It's crusing them hard and it makes the fanbois panic.

My parents and inlaws like to play the Wii. That in it's self makes it a success that the Ps3 and Xbox360 will never EVER get near. They are epic failures in that regard.

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

it has had free internet browsing almost from the beginning,

Really? When I hooked up my brother-in-laws wii to his wifi we couldn't access the net because he needed to purchase the "internet channel".

Not sure how many wii points he needed to purchase for this but its not free.

involving more interacting than pressing 3 buttons for 5 hours as your ass gets bigger,

I prefer the outdoors for my excersise(snowboarding,hiking,canoeing) when I play video games I don't want a workout I want to sit on my ass and only move my fingers. I've played the wii it was fun. I like my PS3 better.

Re:Sad

[captjc]

I own and like my Wii, but I do agree that the library sucks. The problem is not with Nintendo's offerings, as you seem to cite. The problem is that there is a real dearth of good third party games. Yes there is a lack of "'M for mature' war games" but there is also a lack of creative and fun games. It seems almost a meme on slashdot, but the fact is most games are just poorly-made overpriced "waggleware". I'm not saying that there are no good games. I am just saying good games are very few and far between, even more so than other consoles.

Re:Sad

[LBt1st]

The Internet Channel was free for a limited time. I think the first year or so that it was out. There is indeed a fee for it now.

Re:Sad

[grumbel]

AC above is clearly an idiot. The abstraction is a neccessary evil, not a feature.

Depends, many people enjoy doing crazy jumps and moves and fighting monsters and stuff (yes, that includes Mario games), which they couldn't perform when they would be wearing a a mo-cap suit and have perfect 1:1 mapping. Abstraction helps you do stuff you couldn't do in reality, complete lack of abstractions just puts you back into reality, which is not where most people want to be when they think about games.

Motion-sensing controls and peripherals (like the Wii Fit board) give the user more intuitive interaction with the game

And yet I have never seen such huge obtrusive tutorial texts as in Wii games on any other console. Those games sure have to explain a hell of a lot of stuff for their "intuitive interaction".

This is where game developers (and non-133t gamers) WANT to go

Really? How come third party developers largely ignore the Wii and focus on Xbox360 and PS3 instead?

Re:Sad

[Gothic_Walrus]

On the other hand, it's 500 points, or five dollars. Unless something is slipping my mind (and no, DLC extra features don't count), that's cheaper than (or, for NES games, the same price as) everything else offered in the shop channel.

It may not be free, but it's definitely affordable.

Re:Sad

[hkmwbz]

I honestly just feel that the Wii is coasting on hype and novelty.

Hype and novelty? After more than 2 years on the market, there is no "hype and novelty" anymore. Wii is now a well-established gaming platform.

Re:Sad

[hkmwbz]

And yet I have never seen such huge obtrusive tutorial texts as in Wii games on any other console.

Really? I haven't seen it being any different from other consoles. Perhaps with the exception that there are even more casual gamers around, so it's a good thing to make sure they get it.

Re:Sad

[Minwee]

Oh yeah, not enough war games. We need more of those. Less creative, new, differing games. Those blow. We need Halo 4, we need Guitar Hero 37, we need Fallout 9.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you just never played the two real Fallout games. Otherwise I might have to take exception to the final item in that list.

Re:Sad

[mtutty]

Depends, many people enjoy doing crazy jumps and moves and fighting monsters and stuff (yes, that includes Mario games), which they couldn't perform when they would be wearing a a mo-cap suit and have perfect 1:1 mapping. Abstraction helps you do stuff you couldn't do in reality, complete lack of abstractions just puts you back into reality, which is not where most people want to be when they think about games.

To some extent, I think that's my point, too. But wouldn't you agree that there are many cases where pointing at the screen or moving the controller in space is a more effective abstraction? The controlled level of physicality in Wii games is different and very enjoyable for non-gamers.

And yet I have never seen such huge obtrusive tutorial texts as in Wii games on any other console. Those games sure have to explain a hell of a lot of stuff for their "intuitive interaction".

As a recovering 133t gamer, I sure don't need those, but if they help my wife, nieces, and kids catch up, then that's fine. It's not all about me anymore.

Really? How come third party developers largely ignore the Wii and focus on Xbox360 and PS3 instead?

That's a pretty subjective point.

Bottom line - the Wii is definitely made for a different class of gamer. Hardcore gamers are generally not going to understand the point of it.

Re:Sad

[grumbel]

But wouldn't you agree that there are many cases where pointing at the screen or moving the controller in space is a more effective abstraction?

Not really, there have been very few Wii games that actually show that it is better. Wii Sport makes great use of the Wiimote, but lots of other stuff just use it for pointless waggle minigames or don't use it much at all and falls back to a standard control schemes (Galaxy, SmashBros). In addition to that you also have the problem that the Wiimote just isn't good enough for many games, its motion sensing is very limited (Nintendo is trying to fix that with MotionPlus next year) and it also lacks a second analog stick, which makes camera control in third person games pretty awful.

That's a pretty subjective point.

Not really. You just have to look at where the money goes. The big stuff like Dead Space, Fallout3, Bioshock, Assassins Creed and whatever all goes to Xbox360, PS3 and PC, the Wii on the other side gets only some minigame collection. And on top of that the good third party stuff, like Zack & Wiki, doesn't even sell well on the Wii, given even less reason to release bigger games on the Wii.

Hardcore gamers are generally not going to understand the point of it.

Thing is, back when the Wii was new all the fanboys claimed that third party would just jump to it now that it is successful and how everything would be great and awesome in the near future. That however never happened, third parties continue to develop their big titles for the other consoles and not the Wii and the promise of great new control scheme has mostly turned into a waggle fest. As a console platform I consider the Wii a failure, since there simply aren't many good games, as Wii Sports-machine on the other side its a stunning success, but 250EUR is a lot of money for a single game, especially considering that the much more powerful Xbox360 60GB sells for 200EUR (German prices).

Re:Sad

[Anonymous Coward]

So, for $5, I can browse the web in 480i on a SD tv? Or for $30 I can get Opera on my DS? Gosh, that sure is tempting.

We'll just ignore that the web browsers builtin to the PS3 and PSP cost absolutely nothing, and do a great deal more than the Nintendo ones.

Oh, and unlike on the Wii or DS, you can acutally save files, because, you know, you have a memory stick or hard drive. You know, hard drives, the things only "geeks and otaku" use, according to Nintendo.

Charging for an internet browser is pathetic at this point. It should not cost 500 'points' (why not list things in real money? Sony does this, MS and Nintendo fail). It should come with the system. There's no excuse other than Nintendo's naked greed.

Re:Sad

[CronoCloud]

Recently I've seen comments similar to yours stating that Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns and not a "real" Fallout game. So I decided to try the original game, that I've never played, being a console gamer. So installed Fallout to my dosbox directory on my PS3's YDL install. It's slow, but playable. Anyway the vault exit scene reminded me quite a bit of Oblivion and there I was, in the wilderness, with an overarching quest (like Oblivion) but the freedom to go and do what I wanted (like Oblivion). I happened to run into a few rats wandering around (like Oblivion) and killed them, and looted their corpses. Sure it was turn based and isometric, but at it's core it's not that much different than Oblivion. So it seemed to me to be quite appropriate that Fallout 3 uses the Oblivion engine. Fallout 3 IS a real Fallout game.

Re:Sad

[Minwee]

Recently I've seen comments similar to yours stating that "Where's Waldo?" is not "real" literature like Tolstoy's "War and Peace". So I picked up a copy of the book and read it. It's big, but I had plenty of time could figure out most of the words. The opening page had the title of the book written on it, much like "Where's Waldo?" did and then there I was on the first chapter. It had a bunch of words in it (like "Where's Waldo?"), and there was a little sketch of some people on the next page (like "Where's Waldo?"). Sure, it was a lot longer, but at it's (why did I never learn how to spell that word) core "War and Peace" is not that much different from "Where's Waldo?". So it seemed to me that "Where's Waldo" IS a classic work of nineteenth century Russian literature.

Okay, yeah, you got me there. The differences are so slight you would need a microscope to point them out.

Re:Sad

[CronoCloud]

And on top of that the good third party stuff, like Zack & Wiki,

That's a good one? Saw it on the store shelves cheap and was thinking about buying it to give as a gift, but didn't know the quality of it.

as Wii Sports-machine on the other side its a stunning success,

I sometimes say that the Wii, is the "full console" equivalent to those 10 Atari games in a joystick devices, for many owners essentially only being Wii Play/Sports/Fit machines

Re:Sad

[CronoCloud]

Are you one of those gamers who wanted Fallout 3 to be turn based, isometric and 2D....in 2008? Times have changed, games have changed. Fallout 3 may be real time (though VATS makes combat feel more turn based to a certain extent), it may be 3D, it may use the Oblivion engine, and it may not have been developed by Black Isle, but it's still a Fallout game and claiming otherwise is just being curmudgeonly.

May I remind you that one of the reasons Black Isle doesn't exist anymore is that they made games for a niche of gamers, that nowadays is comparatively an even smaller niche.

Re:Sad

[Minwee]

Are you one of those gamers who wanted Fallout 3 to be turn based, isometric and 2D....in 2008?

No, I wanted it turn based, isometric, 2D and released in 1999. Why would I insist on a nine year delay?

it may not have been developed by Black Isle, but it's still a Fallout game and claiming otherwise is just being curmudgeonly.

Uh huh. And is it also just being curmudgeonly to make a distinction between the original Star Trek series and randomly chosen results from a Google search for Star Trek Slash? Or to carry on stubbornly believing that the Very Secret Diaries are not actually part of the Lord of the Rings? Or that the random scribblings that I did in crayon last weekend are not really Sherlock Holmes stories which can stand up with the best of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work?

Fallout 3 may have been inspired by Fallout and Fallout 2, but with none of the original writers or developers involved its branding with the 'Fallout' name is nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

Re:Sad

[benhattman]

Really? How come third party developers largely ignore the Wii and focus on Xbox360 and PS3 instead?

As posted below, each system has plenty of games today, but perhaps you are referring more to the fact that the Wii often doesn't get the same games the PS3 and XBox 360 get. I'm sure in most cases it's a simple matter of economics.

1) Most people have a PS3 or an XBox 360 (or neither). If I write a game for PS3, the port to XBox nets me mostly new gamers.
2) Less so with Wii, as many people have a 360 and a Wii for instance. If I write a 360 game and port to Wii, those who already have the 360 original won't buy it. My market is constrained.
3) Perhaps the Wii is more work to port to. The limited graphics make it cheaper to develop for, but if you've already created an HD world you need to remove a lot of it to port to Wii as well as modify the controls accordingly.

If the cost to port outweigh the new sales, you don't do it. That's my guess about why you don't see the AAA PS/XBox titles ported to the Wii as often.

SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[tepples]

Using a PC just plain sucks and rarely works without major hickups

What kind of shit PC are you using anyway?

One without a composite video output. People like to sit in a recliner or sofa to watch long-form video, and this needs a large monitor. I was at Walmart* last night, and the large monitors that Walmart sells for under $300 have only composite video input because they're CRT SDTVs. You would need a $50 device called a scan converter to translate the 480p, 600p, or 768p RGB output of a computer into the 480i composite signal that an SDTV expects.

Or one in the other room. Almost any TV over $300 is an HDTV with a suitable VGA input. But even people with an HDTV often don't have a PC in the same room as the TV.

Or one that's in use. The operating systems used on most home PCs aren't capable of mapping the remote control and one video card and sound card to one user session (the TV) and the keyboard, mouse, and a second video card and sound card to another session (someone else in the house who is surfing the web or working on a spreadsheet).

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[Lumpy]

My Pc uses HDMI out and Component out. I get ZERO hiccups watching Videos on my PC to my TV and it's happily playing 1080p content.

Granted I use a dedicated Media Center PC that I recently eridaced Mediaportal and Windows off of for XBMC live CD install and will never look back.

It's better than absolutely any other solution out there. Everything else sucks big time compared to it.

I'll never ever buy another one of the half arsed "media players" like the crap that Roku, dlink, linksys and the others have made. uPnp sucks in every way, XBOX 360 really sucks for watching video, the PS3 does as well compared to XBMC.

Besides, PC's are dirt cheap today. I built my mediacenter Pc for $400.00 and half the cost was the case that looks like a stereo component.

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[tepples]

My Pc uses HDMI out and Component out.

How far does the cable reach? And a lot of TVs currently used for gaming and video are standard-definition; what would you recommend using to connect HDMI or component out to those?

Granted I use a dedicated Media Center PC

But a lot of people who use game consoles do not own such a dedicated PC. If I were selling products or services for HTPCs, how would I go about convincing potential customers to buy an HTPC in order to get enough customers to turn a profit?

Besides, PC's are dirt cheap today. I built my mediacenter Pc for $400.00

But a lot of people who game on consoles aren't interested in spending an extra $400 just to stream video. Really all an HTPC can do comfortably are play video and video games, but the major video game publishers haven't recognized HTPC gaming as a market niche. Instead, too many PC games are designed exclusively for LAN play, requiring a separate PC and monitor for each player. And how well does your $400 PC work with a standard-definition TV?

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[SlashJules]

Granted I use a dedicated Media Center PC that I recently eridaced Mediaportal and Windows off

I'm sorry, I couldn't parse that. What the fuck did you do?

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[psyclone]

How far does the cable reach? And a lot of TVs currently used for gaming and video are standard-definition; what would you recommend using to connect HDMI or component out to those?

Uh, if you are building a media center PC, it's usually next to your TV. The cable is no different than from your DVD player. Use RCA, SVideo, or Composite if you don't want HDMI.

But a lot of people who use game consoles do not own such a dedicated PC. If I were selling products or services for HTPCs, how would I go about convincing potential customers to buy an HTPC in order to get enough customers to turn a profit?

The parent didn't say anything about using an HTPC in place of a game console. However, I do think the game consoles should play media the same as a PC. XBMC really is the shit.

Also, why would you sell products or services for home theater PCs? Dude, this is the age of everything online for free. (Although you could build the DRM-free streaming-only version of Netflix, I would totally pay monthly for that.)

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[cheekyboy]

Its a waste to use a HTPC for SD, but if you must it can be done. Tho I have spend far less than 400 on my htpc, the cheapest MB + E1200 CPU + 2gig ram and old 120 HD, with a great 9600nvidia card runs damn well, on par to PS3 or better quality in HD.
If you exclude the spare/old PC case + old HD/dvd-rw. The PC cost far less than a Wii.

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[tepples]

Uh, if you are building a media center PC

Most people do not build their own computers; they instead buy a Dell, an HP, or a Mac. A lot don't want a separate $400 PC; they want a cheaper set-top box, which is why they buy a Wii instead of a PC. So how do I convince customers to want to 1. learn how to build a PC and 2. splurge for a second PC?

Use RCA, SVideo, or Composite if you don't want HDMI.

Most low-end PCs that I saw at Best Buy and Office Depot don't have "RCA, SVideo, or Composite"; they need a $50 scan converter to produce composite video.

Also, why would you sell products or services for home theater PCs? Dude, this is the age of everything online for free.

If I put everything online for free, how do I feed my family? And how do I afford the royalties for, say, the music that I use in my product/service?

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[Anonymous Coward]

How does the PS3 suck at playing video? Other than .mkv it plays everything fine. I run MediaTomb on my FreeBSD file server and stream content from there to my PS3.

Re:SDTVs; PC and TV in separate rooms

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot protip: don't bother responding to tepples.

He is a troll and a Nintendo fanboy who hates anything with a resolution greater than 480i. He will continue hating it until Nintendo makes the Wii 3 with HD sometime in 2037, at which point HD will become state-of-the-art, and the only thing worth mentioning. Until then, he is a pathetic nintendork who cannot imagine life without shitty graphics and waggle controls.

He is also unemployed, and dreams of being a game programmer, but all he is capable of is poorly copying decades-old games like Tetris for use on hacked DSes. If he had half a brain, he'd realize that Nintendo would hate him for this, but then again, if he had half a brain, he could design and code games of his own, rather than just copying them.

Please don't feed this pathetic troll. Attention is all he lives for now, given that he is a pathetic, unemployed fanboy whom everyone hates and is a huge burden to those that know him.

firmware update

[tepples]

MPlayer on Wii Homebrew plays DVDs just fine.

Even if your Wii is updated? I thought Wii Menu 3.4 disabled the DVDX channel that homebrew programs use to access DVD-Video discs, and I thought new Wii consoles shipped with 3.4. Besides, Wii Game Discs produced next year will likely ship with 3.4 on them.

Re:firmware update

[complete loony]

AFAIK new Wii's ship with a different chipset (or missing chip?) that makes DVDX impossible, or at least a lot harder.

Re:firmware update

[Anonymous Coward]

Also for what its worth, the DVDX/Mplayer experience is somewhat subpar. It skips frames and reminds me of the first DVD I played on a computer with a software player.

It is very sad that Nintendo doesn't think the Wii's should play DVDs. I'd like to know what is really behind that. The licensing for DVD decoding can't be that bad at this point. So maybe their goal is to skip DVD's and go to downloadable Movies with the addition of a USB drive (some day...)

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts?

[benwaggoner]

While there's certainly no lack of FPS games on Xbox 360, there's also plenty of accessible family-friendly titles. We've been having great fun over the holidays with the new Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. The platforming aspects don't appeal to all of the older set, but everyone really gets into the vehicle design aspect of it. Particularly the middle-aged and up men who grew up working on cars.

Rock Band/RB2 is also a big hit, and the singing position is great for those intimidated by controllers.

Xbox.com shows 347 Xbox 360 games rated "E (Everyone)" compared to 181 "M (Mature)" FWIW. If you include the 91 "E10" games, that makes more than twice as many family-friendly titles as Mature.

What's the hardware even capable of?

[benwaggoner]

Anyone know what the Wii hardware is capable of for a video experience. As a SD device, it could do 480p60 or 576p50 at best. But the processor is basically a semi souped-up 800 MHz G3, right? My old 800 MHz G4 couldn't play back 480p30 High Profile H.264 and the AltiVec SIMD that the Wii lacks is a big help for that.

Perhaps the ATI video card inherited some DXVA features?

There's some DVD playback, so we know MPEG-2 works, and I could imagine VC-1 or MPEG-4 part 2 (divx/xvid) working for 480p24. But unless there's some dedicated hardware in there, H.264 Main or High profile seems pretty unlikely.

Re:What's the hardware even capable of?

[Jorophose]

h.264 is a pig of a format, on playback at least. Dirac scales better, xvid plays better. What the heck is up with the h.264 hype?

I don't think the Wii will have a problem if this is properly coded, and it might even be done in assembly code to push it even further. I'm sure you could also use the GPU for this sort of thing, don't think OpenCL would be hard even on a GPU like that.

Re:What's the hardware even capable of?

[Goaway]

What the heck is up with the h.264 hype?

Higher quality at lower bitrate? Is there something about that which is difficult to understand?

Re:What's the hardware even capable of?

[Jorophose]

The cost is incredible, though. Yes, it's awesome, I love it. It's a pig though, when compared to other formats.

I guess it's an inherit tradeoff, that when space and bitrate drop, to keep the same quality you need to up intensity.

Re:What's the hardware even capable of?

[benwaggoner]

Yep. H.264 met its goals well. It's just that high performance software playback wasn't one of them :). Baseline profile isn't too bad, but Main and HIgh allow the CABAC entropy coding mode, which isn't amenable to either parallel or GPU processing (unless the video was encoded as independent slices).

I'm biased, but I like VC-1's mix of performance and quality. It's about half the complexity of H.264 (and hence about twice that of MPEG-2), but is within 15% of the bandwidth efficiency of H.264 even at very low bitrates (and converges at moderate-high bitrates).

How to watch video on the Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

I tested a bunch of streaming/converting solutions that all involved watching low-quality videos through the Opera browser. They were all slow, pixelated and frequently ran out of memory.

I then installed the Homebrew Channel on the Wii (using the Twilight Hack, no hardware modification). It was dead simple to install, and now I watch all my divx and xvid videos through mplayer (wii version). It works great, although from what I've read the processor chokes on HD content (most video torrents I get are 720p or so). Oh, and you can either load the videos on the SD card or plug in an external hard drive or USB key for the videos. My other beef with it is the crappy fast-forwarding which sometimes freezes the Wii.

As an added bonus, there's a ton of applications available on the Homebrew Channel (anything from emulators to utilities to multimedia). All free.

Re:How to watch video on the Wii

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it so difficult to use the wifi interface and stream the media over a network?

XVMC seeking sucks compared to xbox1

[cheekyboy]

I loved xbox1's xbmc seeking using the front pads, now in windows.... its more difficult, you have no equivelant that i have seen.

What they need at least is a logarithmic button advance, im not going to wait ages at 22x speed to go forward 1hr. Also I liked how the xbox's version remembered the locations.

Granted I have to 'tweeak' the damn settings, or read a damn FM to see how its done, but the defaults have to be better.

Now just add a Digital TV plugin to it and all other crap can be deleted.
 

Their interface hardware is slowass

[cheekyboy]

Not to mention they choose some half assed slow hardware, cheap as chips, dodgy serial connection that is slower than a 1996 Win95 box with USB1 on a P75.

They should have called the shots and made em all USB2 in 2008, even tho that would leave millions of older Wiis slow versions.