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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.

5 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  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. Why don't wii's play dvds? by n3tcat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  4. firmware update by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:Sad by mtutty · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.