Has Nintendo Lost Its Way? Latest Wii U News Makes Us Think So

[Flare]

Earlier this week we found out that the Nintendo Wii U will NOT support DVD or Blu-Ray playback because Nintendo feels like you already have a bunch of devices that do that. Whether or not that is the case is irrelevant, how the hell can you not support the two most popular video playback formats?

http://zoknowsgaming.com/2011/06/17/...test-wii-news/

[indieseoul]

It sounds like they are just continuing their way of doing things. Remember the original Wii wasn't capable of playing DVDs until someone wrote a homebrew program for it. Nothing new for Nintendo. Is the original Wii now capable of DVD playback without hacking?

[Flare]

Is the original Wii now capable of DVD playback without hacking?

I couldn't tell you. I hacked that sucker the same day I bought it

USB Loader FTW

[indieseoul]

I did a search and it looks like the wii can't play DVDs or even Cd's without a hack even though they promised a future wii that could. The lesson is don't trust Video game console makers. They love to make promises that they don't keep and in Sony's case remove features that they originally had. Looks like it has to do with licensing costs or to prolong the console's life according to this article.
http://asia.cnet.com/crave/no-dvd-pl...n-62209317.htm

[Burgertime]

I think Nintendo would rather have their systems out there just as a means of playing video games. Most people are going to have a DVD player already in some form or another. Blu Ray is getting cheaper now, and more affordable. When Sony released their systems, the timing and allowing playback of CDs, DVDs and Blu Rays was perfect.

[Chris]

Nintendo needs to get with it on this, they should have included Bluray support here. They are so committed to being a "pure gaming" company yet we are seeing things like Netflix and video chat creep up....Nintendo just needs to embrace this stuff instead of fighting it.

[indieseoul]

It's kind of sad but the dvd is pretty much dead when it comes to sales. Here in Korea for example it's almost completely dead. It is really difficult to find a shop with dvds even in Seoul. DVD rental shops used to be on every street corner but now they are outnumbered by manga comic rental shops. Using a pay on demand service like netflix is so much easier for most people. I still buy blu-rays or DVDs but that is because I like listening to the director commentary and I have a PS3 so I enjoy watching films in 1080p. Yeah I'm a nerd like that! Sadly most people aren't technophiles and they just want to see the film one time and not pay to keep it in their collection. If you are an American (like me) do you remember when even small towns had block busters? Oh the good ole days!

[Dhalamar]

It's kind of sad but the dvd is pretty much dead when it comes to sales. Here in Korea for example it's almost completely dead. It is really difficult to find a shop with dvds even in Seoul. DVD rental shops used to be on every street corner but now they are outnumbered by manga comic rental shops. Using a pay on demand service like netflix is so much easier for most people. I still buy blu-rays or DVDs but that is because I like listening to the director commentary and I have a PS3 so I enjoy watching films in 1080p. Yeah I'm a nerd like that! Sadly most people aren't technophiles and they just want to see the film one time and not pay to keep it in their collection. If you are an American (like me) do you remember when even small towns had block busters? Oh the good ole days!

DVDs outnumber pretty much everything around here, though the Blu-Rays are indeed growing. As far as buying films, for the most part I don't care one way or the other whether it's on DVD or Blu-Ray ... I've got somewhere in the area 3,000 DVDs and ... 5 or 6 Blu-Rays ... The Dark Knight being one. :P Though for most newer movies I end up buying I'm going to start getting the Blu-Ray versions of them.

And I don't think back to "good ole days" when I think of my pocket being raped by Blockbuster. Luckily we've always had Family Video around here, and within the last few years on showed up in my town (in the same building Blockbuster used to be in no less).

As far as Nintendo not allowing DVD or Blu-Ray playback, it's honestly no surprise. Though the possibilities of that big-assed controller they have for the thing and Netflix playback is kinda neat ... just for what they could do with the menus. Not neat enough for me to drop the money on the console for something that's probably going to be only marginally more powerful than what's already here, but still neat.

[SepticLemon]

To be honest, with the increasing customer base of netflix, console manufacturers really don't need to worry too much about DVD and BluRay video now. I mean sure BluRay is amazing on the PS3, but since people in the states are turning towards Netflix with it's instant watch feature, there's almost no need for video playback through disc. Not to mention that the 3DS in Japan is going to get 3DTV over IP soon, mind you it's only going to be a single channel, but for a handheld console that's pretty ballsy. All I can say is that eventually the disc format is going to disappear on consoles, if it does result in Cartridges or flash cards for the "I wanna go into stores still" type, but the internet is preety much going to be the near absolute solution for media. In about 10 or so years time, we'll have TVs with built in DVRs with an internet connection where we can rent and buy movies from, request TV shows, and display the news on request rather than scheduled TV. Which kinda exists, but I want scheduled TV to totally go away and have everything on demand. Games and consoles will follow a similar trend, and hey it existed back in the early 80s with that cable company where you can stream Intellivision games without cartridges...



We had the future back then! It's about time we had something like this now, I mean ok it's "sorta" there, and there's stuff like OnLive, but I want a Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft console that's pretty much media free, a machine with a hard drive, and a permanent internet connection. This all shows that discs and video playback isn't all that important, heh.

[retroshaun]

Sweet ad! I wasn't aware of that for the Intellivision, I assume it didn't take off... did anyone have it back in the day?