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Streaming Video Service Coming To the Wii

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-wii-stream-jokes dept.

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.

19 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Advertising by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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'.

  2. Re:Sweet by Myopic · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:Sweet by miffo.swe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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.

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    HTTP/1.1 400
  4. Re:Sweet by grumbel · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

  5. What about the quality? by dmesg0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:What about the quality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:What about the quality? by dmesg0 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.

    3. Re:What about the quality? by dmesg0 · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

    4. Re:What about the quality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:What about the quality? by WiiVault · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:What about the quality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

  6. Re:Wait, what? by BikeHelmet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  7. Sad by ZekoMal · · Score: 2, Insightful
    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.

    1. Re:Sad by ZekoMal · · Score: 3, Insightful
      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.

    2. Re:Sad by Five+Bucks! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

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  8. Re:Wait, what? by funkatron · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?

    --
    "Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
  9. Re:Why don't wii's play dvds? by DigitalCrackPipe · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:Wait, what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

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

  11. Re:Why don't wii's play dvds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    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.