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!

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'.

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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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: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.

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?

[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.

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

[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

[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: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?

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).

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: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.