Wii don’t need DVD playback capability
Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 9:11am by Jack
Seems like putting a soothing blue light in the loading slot was a better business decision than including a pricey “blue-rayed” high def DVD player. Why? Because there’s more evidence out today that Nintendo was crazy like a fox for not including DVD capability in the Wii.
According to new research by The Diffusion Group, though 80 percent of console owners have the option, only 30 percent realized it was part of its feature set, and only 13 percent actually utilize it - more stats inside.
The new report, ‘On the Use of Game Consoles for Movie Viewing’, which surveyed 2000 U.S. homes, says that 74 percent of households rely solely on standalone DVD players for watching movies, while a quarter have gone online to purchase or rent digital movie downloads.
I think I’ve probably reached ad nauseum levels when it comes to criticizing the “video game console as a complete media center is a woefully failed strategy” but since it’s fun and I love schadenfreund schadenfreude so much, I’m going to continue it here today.
DVD players are today, in a word, CHEAP. They have saturated the market to the point where someone like my younger sister can have two break in less than a year and not think twice about going to Target to buy a third. People who think otherwise are the same kind of people who said cassettes would never die all while their CD-playing neighbors skipped around to different tracks with a button press.
And the quality of today’s standard DVD isn’t that bad for $15-20 a pop; a price that becomes more attractive when you stack it next to a Blu-ray disc and start asking what the extra $10-15 is actually getting you. Today’s DVDs get even more attractive when you start talking about upscaling and component cables. HD discs are a niche product that becomes even more niche when you start talking about playing them on consoles. Then there’s the fact that in five years digital distribution is going to make all physical media irrelevant — but that’s another string of personal opinion for another day.
People who bought the PS2 for its DVD playing capability NEEDED it. It was the 1990s. People were starting to buy DVDs en masse like Susan Summers Suzanne Somers roaming free at a cupcake convention. Today we no longer NEED or crave DVD players. We especially don’t need or crave a DVD player in something that was sold to us as a video games console with video game console branding (of course, if no games actually show up for a video game console, THEN you’ll be sure to see whatever else is crammed in there make an appearance in marketing and commercials).
Nintendo realized this way back in 2003 — or whenever it was they stared development on the Wii — as they realized any number of other things about the industry that weren’t conducive to a positive game play experience. Today’s news from Gamasutra that no one cares about DVDs in their VIDEO GAME consoles isn’t a surprise at all. Especially to Nintendo.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Uh, yeah, I really don’t understand people who are all about having a DVD player in their console, like it’s such a necessity. They ARE cheap, and pretty much everyone already has one. Also, I’ll admit that it’s really nice to see things in HD and what not, but it’s definitely not the most important thing when playing a game or watching a movie… at least not from my point of view.
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:57 am
I completely agree. When I bought a PS2, it was also my first DVD player. It might be a nice convenience to have built-in DVD playback, but let’s also remember that console DVD playback is vastly inferior to even a cheap stand-alone player, both aesthetically and functionally. I’m glad Nintendo didn’t include this feature. Very few people would have benefited from it, and it may have added to the cost.
Also, the HD/Blu-Ray thing: I think the technological increase is too minor for most people to be interested, and in the not-too-distant future digital downloads of movies will be the standard. This is just an intermediate phase before the next big leap.
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:44 am
Yeah just look at the percentage of online consoles that have downloaded movies 48%, that really shows where we are heading..
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:47 am
Yeah, and Wii isn’t really placed well for the movie downloading thing with 512MB of internal storage and the inability to use files directly on SD cards. But at least there’s Youtube and services like it…. maybe if and when online movie downloading becomes a big deal, Nintendo will have a pay per view movie streaming portal.
Not that I’d use it, any more than I use my cable company’s “on demand” pay per view, but my partner and others like him sure would.
BTW, it’s Suzanne Somers who would eat a cupcake convention to the ground.
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:56 am
Most people own a DVD player before they would own a video game console.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:36 pm
While I’ll admit that it is a nice feature to have your console play also DVDs, I also have to words of advice if you own one of those (e.g., Xbox or PS2): Don’t do it!
Using your DVD-playback-capable console as your only DVD player too greatly reduces the lifetime of both the servo motor that spins the discs and the one that moves and focuses the lenses. Since a really good DVD player costs now only $50, the risk of having to spend several hundred down the road to replace your gaming console is not worth it!
I’m not sure if this applies to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray on new consoles, though, but in that respect, Jack is right: downloadable content will make selling entertainment media on discs obsolete.
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I disagree with all of you.
Over the last 10 or so years Consoles have traditionally been purchased by the somewhat techno-savvy, for use by either individual/sibling teenage boys, or by older richer young men. The DVD player in the bedroom wouldn’t work for the boys, and the young man most certainly has one already. However, I believe Nintendo had a real opportunity they missed here. The level of user-friendliness of Wii meant it really did have the potential to hit markets like few consumer electronics before: grandmas and grandpas, utter techno-phobes and whatnot. They could have gotten DVD use into places never reached.
MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY, THE UNINITIATED EXPECT THE DISC DRIVE TO PLAY ANY DISC THEY PUT IN, ESPECIALLY IF IT GLOWS BLUE. At the very least Wii had the potential consolidate the scary array of devices and associated remotes, to be an accessible everything machine for those who hate computers: easy interface, weather, news, simple browser, photos, movies. Oh wait, scratch the last one because Nintendo didn’t pay the $10 license fee to play DVD.
You should be asking why didn’t Nintendo include DVD support? For that matter, why not even CD support?
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 pm
@Elmer, I’d too would have loved to have seen DVD or even CD support in the Wii but what can you do? Nintendo is Nintendo and will always be Nintendo… Perhaps in the next-gen?
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
ha ha! theres only 1 guy that says that nintendo made a mistake of not including dvd playback. he probally has a ps3 and stuck watching movies because there arent any fun games that make it worth he 600 he spent on it
July 2nd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
It’s schadenfreude, not schadenfreund. And I’m glad the Wii doesn’t have a DVD player. It would only raise the place to tack on a feature which is completely unrelated to gaming. I don’t want my console heading down the path of the “do all, be all” 360 and PS3.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:01 pm
@elmer: Why ask a question that’s unnecessary? It’s already been answered: to cut costs and make the Wii as affordable as possible while still making Nintendo a profit with every unit sold.
From the sales of the Wii I’d argue that the question is largely irrelevant as well. Both CD and DVD playback are not necessary to the game play experience and only tack on additional cost and complexity. Therefore, you will not see either in this system. I also doubt you’ll see them in the future, whatever kind of system that may hold.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
@ Jack
While I certainly see the DVD argument, the CD argument makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. So far as I know there are absolutely no additional costs whatsoever to allowing playback of CD audio. Software work would be negligible. Standards are open and free. Why then not include it? I don’t understand.
As for DVD, why not offer it as an add on? A dongle? Software? Maybe they will do it, but I also know they toyed with precisely this idea and subsequently rejected it. Why? The fact of the matter is I have a Digital box, a DVD player and a Wii half the size of my DVD player sitting under the TV. I have a DVD drive for playing movies and a second DVD drive for playing games. I’d love to get rid of one, and I’d gladly pay $10 dollars to save the cabinet space, have one less remote and not have to switch my limited power cable ports around. And seriously, $10? at the most!
@ Mr Pat
Making assumptions about others to cover your lack of a counter argument makes you look stupid.
I’ve despised Sony as a company after every Sony product I’ve ever owned (barring blank VHS cassettes) has broken after 1 year and 3 months, and found this to be true for almost everyone I’ve met. I dearly love Nintendo as a creative and fiscally responsible company with a positive outlook on competition since I was 8. To demonstrate my commitment I will now reveal that in addition to every main Nintendo console and handheld, I actually own a Virtual Boy.
My mother is afraid of technology, and playing films on Wii would make things easier for people like her. On Button: point to disc: Click
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I agree with Elmer. I love the “minimalistic” look of my home entertainment system and so does my wife. The fewer boxes under my TV the better. If they can offer a $10 VC software download that would allow me to play DVD’s then I would be all over that. Its not necessary and sure everyone has a DVD player. My point is simply that if the Wii already has all the hardware it needs to offer this feature… then why not let those of us who want it pay extra for it.
As of May there have been at least 6,000,000 Wii’s sold, if 13% of them want to be able to use their Wii as a DVD player, thats almost 800,000 people… probably a heck of a lot more people will use and appreciate a DVD software addon than appreciated the “Everybody Votes” channel or the glut of crappy VC titles.
Below I found this quote from the media earlier this year… is this not happening now, or are we all still in the dark?
“The Nintendo Wii will get DVD movie playback after all. The gamemaker plans to update the Wii with the feature in 2007, using a software engine provided by Sonic Solutions.”
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:58 am
You may not have seen a “real” DVD player recently if you think that the Wii would provide a nicer experience with its “On button: Point to disc: Click” (actually “On button: Wait 5 seconds for disclaimer screen: Click: Point to disc: Click: Click Start”) than a plain old 29 dollar DVD player would.
A “real” DVD player, even one bought at the drugstore, will just turn on automatically and start playing the disc without having to push any buttons on the remote, much less point it at the screen. A “real” DVD player also has a remote with a play button, a pause button, fast forward and rewind buttons, and a stop button, not to mention all the numbers for chapter selection. “Press 2, grandma!” “But I want to see that last part again!” “2 is rewind!” “….Then which button is 2?” And a “real” DVD player doesn’t cost much more than Nintendo would have paid for the DVD license, at least here in the US.
Nintendo had nothing at all to gain with DVD video or CD audio support except the loss of some whiners who are lost in the hurricane of the Wii’s popularity anyway, and would find something else to complain about regarding the Wii if they did. Maybe it would even be something substantial if they weren’t distracted by their inability to play their pr0n on the Wii.
And if anything, the non-gamers are the ones who already have the DVD players. It’s not like DVD functionality has been a gateway drug for console uptake in 5 or 6 years now. My parents didn’t have a VCR until almost 1990, and they’re already on their second cheap DVD player. (I myself have never paid more than 68 bucks for one, except for a portable that I’ve never actually played a DVD on, just used as a screen for my Gamecube and PS2, cheaper at the time than the ones actually sold for use with them, and for MPEG-4 playback off of a USB thumb drive.)
Sure, I’d love to be able to play videos (pr0n and otherwise) on my Wii, though I could already be converting them to MJPEG and playing them off the SD card, and I’m not. But Nintendo’s “pure play” gaming strategy is deliberate on their part, and looks like it’s successful enough that we can call it “the right thing to do.” Even the web browser and news/weather are a stretch, though I haven’t been into the news or weather in months (hello, there are these things called RSS feeds now that let you not have to manually run a news fetching program to check the news) and when I use the browser it’s usually for flash games.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:41 am
I think Nintendo was 100% right to not include DVD playback.
For DVD playback you need to license the technology (DVD, MPEG-2, AC3/DTS Audio Codecs etc.), increasing the cost of the console, even if it is just a few dollars. And you need to produce / buy a player software to include with the console, plus adapt it to the Wii controls, another few dollars there.
And then there is support of the software: updates, customer problems with certain codecs / DVD and so on.
In effect, the Wii would have been more expensive for a feature only a minority wants.
No thanks.
July 3rd, 2007 at 7:00 am
It’s called an onscreen menu. The Wii has 1 Big Fat Button. Even I get pissed off at looking for the stupidly unergonomic placement of the fiddly skip back button on my DVD remote when I can find it. But then I keep losing it, because it’s my eighth damn control and it falls off my sofa’s hand rest. The menu’s easier for Grandma. In fact, I’d go far as to say you actually made a DVD player sound more complicated than I could.
Turn on Automatically? This is actually a feature of Wii I failed to mention. Put the disc in and it turns itself on. I’ve yet to actually find a regular store DVD player that even has a slot loading bay.
WTF? Pure Play? What do you think the channels are for? Why do you think they gave us 40 odd channel slots? Is anyone going to buy that many VC games? Why give us an SD card port and USB slots at all if “PURE PLAY” is all that’s needed? Surely a Gamecube with a Wiimote is enough then.
Nintendo has recognized what Wii can do. I know you don’t use the weather channel, or the news channel, but if it’s easy enough (and its easier for grandma than it ever was on PC) then Grandma might. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that you’re selling the Wii’s potential short.
Nintendo had nothing to lose from providing CD support, and nothing to lose from at least providing a DVD option.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:18 am
I swear I was exagerating when I said $10 for the licenses. In the next few years they may very well be considered so defunct by the creators it may even disappear altogether ala mp3. Support is totally unnecessary. When was the last time you got a firmware update on your DVD player? Licensing a software player may cost a bit, but retasking one of the myriad open source decoding options would have taken what? 2 programmers 4 months, plus another 2 for bug testing? at $60,000 a year each that’s say $80,000? Divide that by the 8 million Wiis out there and that’s 1 cent each?
I know it’s not very scientific, but I think it was well within the budget. What pisses me off is that all the hardware is there and the software expense is negligible.
July 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
There have already been reports of people using up all their Wii channel slots and having to offload to SD cards. I can’t imagine it myself (I would have expected to run out of flash first), but the number of VC games available certainly exceeds the number of slots available.
I really think that they were thinking “cute digital camera tricks” and possibly “cheap memory cards to offload saves” when they put the SD slot in there, and not “wow, this could be the video entertainment hub for the whole house.”
July 6th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I still think that having DVD play back would get rid of the hassle of unplugging the Wii and plugging in the DVD player. It would also be cool to have a DVD channel on the Wii. It IS controlled via remote.