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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.
BBC iPlayer - on the Wii!
The main adventage simply is that a Wii is connected to your TV, a PC most of the time isn't.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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).
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.
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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.
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.
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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.