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.

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?

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 [sewelldirect.com] 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.

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.