Gaming What about a client-side media player?

[DiscostewSM]

So, the WiiU will run Youtube. It will have Netflix. It has TVii. It has this...and it has that. But there is one thing missing, and that is a client-side media player. Has anything been said about such a thing?

 

[loco365]

So, the WiiU will run Youtube. It will have Netflix. It has TVii. It has this...and it has that. But there is one thing missing, and that is a client-side media player. Has anything been said about such a thing?

As long as we don't get the shit that was the Photo Channel, I'll be happy.

 

[Taleweaver]

Good question. From what I've seen and heard, I would have to say "no". You can flip through your photos and put them on the television screen, but movies? I haven't heard from it. But it's something we'll have to see, I guess. I can certainly understand they don't want to upset their sponsors by saying something like "...and if you just want to play all your illegally downloaded movies, then the wiiU is ALSO capable of doing that. ".

 

[Ericthegreat]

And how will this be used to exploit the wii u and enable homebrew/backups?

 

[TripleSMoon]

And how will this be used to exploit the wii u and enable homebrew/backups?

Um, what?

Anyway, what I'd like is a media player that allows you to play your own music while playing games, like on the 360. that would be pretty cool.

 

[Ericthegreat]

And how will this be used to exploit the wii u and enable homebrew/backups?

Um, what?

Anyway, what I'd like is a media player that allows you to play your own music while playing games, like on the 360. that would be pretty cool.

Wouldn't you like to know >.>;

 

[SpaceJump]

Why not just transfer WiiMC

 

[matt1tude]

That is a huge thing I would like. Playing your own music in the background while playing the games. I don't see why it's not possible, if there's 1gb for os and 1gb for games then it should be a given with the music being played from the os side of things. Nintendo would be stupid not to incorperate it, after all wasnt that feature first introduced on the original xbox.

 

[TripleSMoon]

That is a huge thing I would like. Playing your own music in the background while playing the games. I don't see why it's not possible, if there's 1gb for os and 1gb for games then it should be a given with the music being played from the os side of things. Nintendo would be stupid not to incorperate it, after all wasnt that feature first introduced on the original xbox.

And we all know how Nintendo LOVES to do things just because other systems do it. lol.

 

[SifJar]

I'd say at the very least it should support the various browser based services which stream media from a home PC (e.g. Orb or TVersity). But that's probably not useful in games (although there was something about browsing on the controller while playing games...).

 

[matt1tude]

That is a huge thing I would like. Playing your own music in the background while playing the games. I don't see why it's not possible, if there's 1gb for os and 1gb for games then it should be a given with the music being played from the os side of things. Nintendo would be stupid not to incorperate it, after all wasnt that feature first introduced on the original xbox.

And we all know how Nintendo LOVES to do things just because other systems do it. lol.

Lol yeah I mean Nintendo seems steer clear of copying others even if its what people want, maybe thats a good thing, maybe not. Take DVD playback for example. I kinda see Nintys point with not having official dvd playback in its systems. In this day of age everyone should own a dvd player but having one in your gaming system means less devices, less cables, less clutter. If Nintendo doesnt support media playback on Wii U then its only a matter time before the softmodders get their mitts dirty to make it possible.

 

[TripleSMoon]

Lol yeah I mean Nintendo seems steer clear of copying others even if its what people want, maybe thats a good thing, maybe not. Take DVD playback for example. I kinda see Nintys point with not having official dvd playback in its systems. In this day of age everyone should own a dvd player but having one in your gaming system means less devices, less cables, less clutter. If Nintendo doesnt support media playback on Wii U then its only a matter time before the softmodders get their mitts dirty to make it possible.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard the reason the Wii doesn't have an official DVD player (and likely the reason the Wii U won't have an official DVD/BluRay player) is because Nintendo doesn't want to deal with the licensing fees. Like I said, no idea how accurate that is, but that's what I heard.

 

[silver_ryder]

Lol yeah I mean Nintendo seems steer clear of copying others even if its what people want, maybe thats a good thing, maybe not. Take DVD playback for example. I kinda see Nintys point with not having official dvd playback in its systems. In this day of age everyone should own a dvd player but having one in your gaming system means less devices, less cables, less clutter. If Nintendo doesnt support media playback on Wii U then its only a matter time before the softmodders get their mitts dirty to make it possible.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard the reason the Wii doesn't have an official DVD player (and likely the reason the Wii U won't have an official DVD/BluRay player) is because Nintendo doesn't want to deal with the licensing fees. Like I said, no idea how accurate that is, but that's what I heard.

That´s the point...!

 

[pwsincd]

Spotify!

 

[SifJar]

Lol yeah I mean Nintendo seems steer clear of copying others even if its what people want, maybe thats a good thing, maybe not. Take DVD playback for example. I kinda see Nintys point with not having official dvd playback in its systems. In this day of age everyone should own a dvd player but having one in your gaming system means less devices, less cables, less clutter. If Nintendo doesnt support media playback on Wii U then its only a matter time before the softmodders get their mitts dirty to make it possible.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard the reason the Wii doesn't have an official DVD player (and likely the reason the Wii U won't have an official DVD/BluRay player) is because Nintendo doesn't want to deal with the licensing fees. Like I said, no idea how accurate that is, but that's what I heard.

Yes, but their justification for not paying for the licensing was, as matt1tude said, "everyone has a DVD player"; there was no point inflating the cost with unnecessarily licensing DVD playback.

 

[Taleweaver]

And how will this be used to exploit the wii u and enable homebrew/backups?

Um, what?

Anyway, what I'd like is a media player that allows you to play your own music while playing games, like on the 360. that would be pretty cool.

Wouldn't you like to know >.>;

Is this one of those "If I watch every piece of digital movie available, my wiiU will somehow glitch and get me root access" kind of thinking?


Because if it is...good luck finding out!

 

[Ericthegreat]

And how will this be used to exploit the wii u and enable homebrew/backups?

Um, what?

Anyway, what I'd like is a media player that allows you to play your own music while playing games, like on the 360. that would be pretty cool.

Wouldn't you like to know >.>;

Is this one of those "If I watch every piece of digital movie available, my wiiU will somehow glitch and get me root access" kind of thinking?


Because if it is...good luck finding out!

Maybe, Maybe not >.> you'll never know my 1337 secrets.

 

[Rydian]

Well Nintendo did add a music player for the 3DS, but they only kept it to certain formats.

An issue is supporting all the various container/video/audio formats. Unlike music, in the video world there's way too many formats for side-projects to keep track of. "Well if it plays AVI..." - AVI isn't a video format. It's a container format, the actual video format can differ. Is it an AVI with Cinepak video? H.263? M-JPEG? MPEG-1? MPEG-2? Sorenson? Theora? Divx? And if so which version of Divx? There's tons more that are possible, and then you get into other containers, and resolutions, etc. and it becomes a big mess. And that's not to mention all the licenses and potential fees for use of the technologies.

As for videos within games and such, those are crafted by the company to play in that specific cutscene and such. You can't take the DS version of Chrono Trigger, replace the opening FMV with an AVi+XVid+AC3 encode of Finding Nemo, and expect it to play.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I had always figured that when Nintendo initially announced a dongle for the Wii to allow DVD playback that they wanted to offer the option to those willing to pay for it (because royalties are what keep them away from adding them by default and not everyone uses a game console for media playback). Ignore the fact that it never came to being, and bear with me. With this latest information about the WiiU dedicated a rather high RAM amount for OS of a "game console", I wonder if Nintendo may offer such "options". Obviously not right out of the box, but perhaps for those willing to pay for them. From what I researched, DVD video playback costs $2 per unit in royalties (not including Dolby audio), while Bluray is about $20 per unit (according to Sony). Then you've got MP3, Dolby as mentioned earlier, h.264, and numerous other codecs that may or may not have a price. Including even just Bluray playback pushes the price of the console up by a bit.

It would be nice if Nintendo did offer a media player that initially allowed playback of formats that were free to use, then if people wanted the additional formats, they could pay for them individually or as a package via eShop.

 

[loco365]

I had always figured that when Nintendo initially announced a dongle for the Wii to allow DVD playback that they wanted to offer the option to those willing to pay for it (because royalties are what keep them away from adding them by default and not everyone uses a game console for media playback).

According to TCRF, the Wii was originally slated to have DVD playback built into the system. (Read here: http://tcrf.net/Wii)