Japanese Broadcasters Fear Wii TV

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The Japanese broadcasting industry has reason to fear Nintendo's new Wii video content initiative, according to an article today from the Times Online.

One senior executive at Fuji Television, the largest commercial broadcaster in Japan, called the planned Wii streaming video service "the stuff of television producers' nightmares."

Nintendo announced last week its intention to launch a Wii streaming channel in Japan. The company has partnered with top Japan advertising firm Dentsu, and intends to launch the service sometime this year.

The Fuji executive noted that if Nintendo did push for the Wii to become "the centerpiece of the living room," it would come at a particularly bad time for Japanese broadcasters, which are currently being criticized for "relying too heavily on repeats and celebrity formats."

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    January 2, 2009 1:12 PM

    Seems kind of ironic that a country where so much HDTV technology is developed and where such insane internet bandwith is available to consumers that the 480p capped Wii will be the living room entertainment device.

    • reply
      January 2, 2009 2:25 PM

      Maybe. I would like to see if Japan is anything like the US where a large chunk of the populace buys HDTVs and then still hooks them up with coax/RCA cables.

      • reply
        January 2, 2009 2:49 PM

        You know, I honestly wouldn't be too surprised. Japanese are always on the leading edge of technology, but if you ask a Japanese person anything technical about their fancy gear they don't know anything about it. Which really sucks because they always have such awesome shit :(

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        January 2, 2009 10:26 PM

        I"m no expert on Japanese television but I did spend a week in Tokyo two years ago and honestly there's not much on Japanese television that really demands high def. From what I saw the average budget of a Japanese television show is about the same as local morning news shows spend in the USA (which is to say as little as possible).
        Nearly everything I saw was either the famous gameshows, talk shows that looked similar in spirit to Regis and Kelly, Travel Channel-style stuff and some Anime . The only time I saw any fiction programming was when I was up at 3am because of jet lag and there was some soap opera (which from looking online I figured out was something like 7 years old)
        Maybe there are big budget shows that cost the equivalent of a million dollars and episode but I didn't see it. With such low budget programming you probably aren't missing much by watching it in high def.

    • reply
      January 3, 2009 10:47 PM

      Not everyone has a hi-def TV over there.

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