Wii U won't play DVD/Blu-ray movies

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has announced that the Wii U won't feature DVD or Blu-ray playback, citing it as cost-prohibitive and saying people already own devices to play movies.

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Though it seems to be a match for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in most ways, the Wii U won't have the capability of playing DVD or Blu-ray movies. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed the news in a recent investor Q&A, saying that people already own devices for that purpose and "it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies."

Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean you can't watch movies on your Wii U next year. Netflix is aggressively pursuing every device with a screen, so it's a safe bet that we'll see some form of instant streaming on the Wii U. If Nintendo can get a low-latency stream from the device onto the controller screen, even better.

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  • reply
    June 15, 2011 7:45 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Wii U won't play DVD/Blu-ray movies.

    Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has announced that the Wii U won't feature DVD or Blu-ray playback, citing it as cost-prohibitive and saying people already own devices to play movies.

    • reply
      June 15, 2011 7:50 AM

      Confused, so this has a proprietary type of optical drive or none? Or does it use dvd's but just don't have the software to watch it from them?

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        June 15, 2011 7:53 AM

        Technically it can read DVD's because that's what the Wii uses and it's backwards compatible. The Wii U games will be made on some high density optical format (either some version of Blu-ray or as I have guessed with amusement before, they may have bought HD-DVD from Toshiba).

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          June 15, 2011 8:02 AM

          The Wii doens't use "DVDs." They've change like 1% of it so they can call it proprietary.

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            June 15, 2011 8:14 AM

            They're thicker and have some garbage data but otherwise they're the same thing.

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              June 15, 2011 9:30 AM

              You can read Wii DVD's on certain DVD drives with a custom firmware image.

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        June 15, 2011 7:57 AM

        the interview with reggie post conference had him talking around it. i think he was asked if it would have bluray or some other alternative format that would be similar. he said something like the disc format won't limit the system. as in it could still be DVD or it could be a proprietary format probably because he is confident in the games. doesn't seem like they want to talk about it yet.

        i think this was the gametrailers video interview.

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        June 15, 2011 7:58 AM

        25GB "high density" (blu-ray?) discs (I imagine probably cheaper to use the hardware without having the "Blu-Ray" playback license.

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          June 15, 2011 8:15 AM

          using the hardware without a patent license is more expensive once you get sued

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        June 15, 2011 8:04 AM

        Supposedly it uses a Blu-Ray type disc. But they didn't want to pay the licensing fees for the softwqare required to play DVD's or Blu-Rays.

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        June 15, 2011 12:48 PM

        Interesting, thanks guys, I've never used a Wii either, so didn't really know about that dvd thing.

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      June 15, 2011 7:54 AM

      I am perfectly ok with this. I do wonder how much $ saved translate to the user though. It'd be nice if it was a firmware update option that you can buy online for those interested. As for me, I'm ok with watching my DVDs/Blu-Rays on my 3 other capable machines.

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        June 15, 2011 8:54 AM

        Yeah it's kinda shitty. It makes sense to cut costs whenever possible, but dvd playback especially can't add that much cost to the system. Nintendo dipped it's toes into the media hub pool with their picture channel and the music playing abilities on their hand-helds, and the netflix capability, but for whatever reason they don't want to play dvd's.

        Which I'm more and more ok with, I'd like to get rid of my physical media completely as time goes on, but hopefully I can stream to the device ala PS3/360 without hacking the thing.

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          June 15, 2011 9:15 AM

          I think Nintendo "knows their place". They know they're almost always a second device in addition to whatever their customer base is. Everyone has a DVD player now, why add that redundancy at increased cost?

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            June 15, 2011 10:47 AM

            I can hardly recall the last time I played a physical disc anyways.

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      June 15, 2011 8:00 AM

      DVD playback is pointless... so I'm surprised Nintendo haven't added it to the other pointless features they are tauting..!

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      June 15, 2011 8:57 AM

      Nintendo has never given a total package entertainment system so why start now

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        June 15, 2011 9:01 AM

        Yeah, why would they want to add selling points to there hardware?!

        Freaking Nintendo.

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          June 15, 2011 9:12 AM

          I sort of understand. I'm sure the bluray licensing required won't be cheap. It still pisses me off though. Having a bluray drive in the system with no ability to playback bluray movies would really turn me off to the system.

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          June 15, 2011 9:14 AM

          Is it honestly a selling point nowadays? DVD players are bargain basement cheap, and have decent quality despite the cheapness. Blu-ray are almost as cheap with a much higher quality. There's really no reason to keep buying the same device over and over again, especially with optical media on the decline, and high quality streaming video on the rise.

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            June 15, 2011 9:24 AM

            I think it's a decent selling point. Not everyone is into streaming media at the rate diehard gamers or technophiles are and many folk like an all-in-one solution for their gadgetry. I know I do. Fairly decent disappointment but not unexpected because I'll be they're seriously scrambling right now to find ways to get the cost down. It's not going to be pretty.

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            June 16, 2011 4:02 PM

            Bluray is not on the decline (DVD obviously is), 2011Q1 saw a 10% increase in sales over 2010Q1, the same growth that streaming & digital downloads saw, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.

            Anyway, the way I look at it, why would I want to buy a bluray player when I can just buy a console that has dual functionality? Bluray penetration is still only 45% of HDTV households. If I don't have a bluray player yet and am eyeing a WiiU now I have to buy both.

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      June 15, 2011 9:17 AM

      As long as it can stream netflix, it doesn't matter. Even the Wii does that.

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      June 15, 2011 9:22 AM

      The last time I put in and watched a DVD was when The 40 Year Old Virgin came out. If I was rich I would love to collect Blu-rays but I still wouldn't end up watching them.

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      June 16, 2011 7:10 AM

      this is the beginning of the end of optical/physical media. Thank you Nintendo :)

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