Wii U Not Compatible with DVD or Blu-ray

[Marco925]

[citation][nom]timbozero[/nom]Proprietary 25 GB format ? Yeah right ! Nintendo have paid extra to develop a non-Bluray disc or hardware unit ? I don't think so !What I suspect is that they are using a Bluray unit with a custom firmware to make it secure but , at the cost of Bluray playback.[/citation]
Nahh It's a blu-ray-LIKE disc but certainly not a blu ray disc. it reads differently for sure, they are Proprietary for sure. Nintendo always had proprietary formats from day 1.

[citation][nom]nebun[/nom]the excuse is so lame...how hard is it to implement Blu-ray/DVD-playback???? this really boggles my mind!!!!!!![/citation]
Simple. Nintendo doesnt want to pay sony, a competitor to use their product. Those licensing fees will drive up the cost of the console. I bought a console to play games. how hard is it for you to implement bluray playback on your PC?
[citation][nom]buhusky[/nom]so i'm going to replace my ps3, which also doubles as my blu-ray player, with a wii u that does't play blu-rays. how am i going to play all of my blu-rays now? i think it's kind of stupid for nintendo to automatically kill any chance of having ps3 owners upgrade to the new system.[/citation]
Keep your PS3 and your Wii U and play Wii U games on a Wii U and play Blu ray movies on your PS3. Problem solved.

 

[rosen380]

"Dark Lord, you don't own a DVD player. $25 bucks at Wal-mart."

I think that is the point-- if Walmart can SELL a DVD player for $25 which includes any necessary licensing and hardware costs, wouldn't you assume that DVD play-back could be put into the Wii for less than that? If they can design, manufacture, package, ship and sell a basic DVD player for $25, what can it possibly cost Nintendo to make the Wii play DVDs out of the box? It can already do it though a hack, so it would just come down to a software modification. If it cost them $100k in internal development, with 86M WIIs sold [per Wikipedia as of 3/31], we're talking 0.1 cents per unit. And you know what? If there were two versions available and the one with DVD play-back was $10 more, I would have bought that, so $10 vs $0.001 is a pretty good profit margin

 

[rosen380]

http/reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?51839-Major-Hollywood-film-shot-on-Red-bluray-workflow./page2

One of the commenters on that thread mentions a $0.04 cost per disc for BluRay licensing. Plus a one-time fee to become a licensee, plus a yearly fee to use the BluRay logo. I think we can agree with most games costing $20-$50 at the store, and extra four cents is no biggie. And along with my previous post, even if the other licensing cost a million dollars, when you sell nearly 100M units, that is still just a penny per unit. Even if the system flopped and you only sold a couple million units, it is still a fraction of a dollar per unit.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]Marco925[/nom]Nahh It's a blu-ray-LIKE disc but certainly not a blu ray disc. it reads differently for sure, they are Proprietary for sure. Nintendo always had proprietary formats from day 1.
Simple. Nintendo doesnt want to pay sony, a competitor to use their product. Those licensing fees will drive up the cost of the console. I bought a console to play games. how hard is it for you to implement bluray playback on your PC?
Keep your PS3 and your Wii U and play Wii U games on a Wii U and play Blu ray movies on your PS3. Problem solved.[/citation]
I'll say it again for those that don't understand.
The discs themselves are not proprietary, the substrate and dyes in the disc are the same as DVDs for the Wii, they are just burned backwards and read backwards.
So no proprietary "format" per-se is being used, just a drive that reads the wrong way.
The fact that you can hack the drive to play DVDs proves that it is capable or reading the right way round.

So if they use 25Gb discs they will do the same trick, burn them backwards, read them backwards, but still use blank BluRay media and even though the functionallity doesn't exist at release to reduce costs it should be made available via the Wii shop to buy a DVD or Bluray licence at the end users expense, should they want it, and when a BluRay movie is inserted it will read it the right way round.

Don't believe me? Watch this space.

 

[f-gomes]

[citation][nom]Karitas[/nom]I think it's a great move. Just avoiding as many licensing fees as possible. And they are absolutely correct - most people with a wii, have something else in addition that can play movies.[/citation]
Wrong. I am a PC guy, and have resisted as much as I could to buying a console. I give up, I will have to joing the bandwagon, and I will be looking for a console that can play DVD and Bluray, so that I can skip bying a BD player and can get rid of the DVD player.

Any console should be able to play mainstream media.

 

[Guest]

Why are people whining about this is beyond me? Nintendo has sold far more Wii's in the same time frame as PS3 or Xbox360. Did not being compatible with DVD or BR kill it or even significantly hurt it? Hell no it didn't so why all the fuss? What home doesn't already have a dedicated DVD or BR player anyway. This was a smart move by Nintendo to cut that to hold back costs a little bit. Remember when the PS3 was released and it could do everything short of wiping your butt? People freaked out at the cost! People should be glad Nintendo is looking out for your pocketbook.

 

[ravewulf]

I'm wondering if it is an actual Blu-ray drive (able to read Blu-ray data discs) but with no software playback components. They could have done that and removed the Blu-ray branding so as not to confuse consumers expecting Blu-ray video compatibility. Seems a lot easier than creating a whole new proprietary 25 GB disc.

 

[Guest]

Just another example of nintendo acting like their $#hit doesn't stink, and ignoring the consumers. They're called focus groups. USE THEM.

There's no way i'm going to buy the WII U. It's a mishmash of bad gimmicky gaming hardware, that honestly, very few people care about. I'm tired of the lame kiddy designs, and increasingly juvenile software. Nintendo gets no money from me.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]f-gomes[/nom]Wrong. I am a PC guy, and have resisted as much as I could to buying a console. I give up, I will have to joing the bandwagon, and I will be looking for a console that can play DVD and Bluray, so that I can skip bying a BD player and can get rid of the DVD player.Any console should be able to play mainstream media.[/citation]
You don't have to join the bandwagon, keep your PC.
It plays games in higher res and faster FPS
Has a bigger catalogue than any console ever
Allows lots of free games via flash gaming sites like Candystand
Has better and more responsive controllers via mouse & keyboard
In case your hands are warped and mis-shapen like a Jeremy Beadle claw you can still use a USB games controller
Let's you upgrade your optical drive to one that can play DVDs, Blurays, whatever comes next, etc.
Has DLNA / UPNP network streaming
Has Netflix
Has web browsing, with whatever choice of browser you prefer
Games cost less than consoles
Can also be attached to a TV in the living room

There is no downside

If you don't have a PC to start with you may baulk at the initial outlay price versus console, but if you already have one then it is cheaper to stay ahead and cheaper to run ongoing and with many more fringe benefits for things consoles cannot do.

 

[Guest]

If I see a mario or zelda game again, I am going to shoot myself.

 

[TheViper]

^Can you do us a favor and go ahead and get starting on that?

 

[gm0n3y]

Does anyone even use DVD or Bluray anymore? I don't own a Bluray player and I gave away my DVD player a few years ago. I guess I have an xbox 360, but I've never watched a movie on it. Don't people have this thing Al Gore invented a while back, its called 'the Internet'.

 

[Guest]

Nintendo announced a new super smash brothers for the Wii U. I don't care if the new tablet controller takes a crap on me every 15 minutes and burns hotter then a macbook in my hands, I will buy one for that game.

Also, people need to realize the Wii U supports all of the old Wii controllers (wiimote, wiimote plus, the nunchuck, the gamepads, etc.) so even if the tablet controller ends up being a POS, more then likely you already have four controllers lying around which will work with the new system if you already own a Wii.

One other serious comment about the new controller... It seems like it's made for the more hardcore gamer -- I can see it being used for things like calling airstrikes in call of duty, or seeing where your team mates are in real time on the entire map without having to pull up a special window.

 

[gm0n3y]

Thinking about it, while competition is good and everything I kinda wish Nintendo would stop making hardware and just make games. I'm probably never going to buy another Nintendo console (last one was SNES) unless they change their focus drastically but I'd still like to play some of their games (Mario games, Zelda, etc).

 

[Guest]

I have had a PS3 for over a year now, and not once have I played a blu-ray movie on it... I don't care whether the Wii U supports it or not, I do care whether is does have lots of great games, unlike the Wii, which only had 2, mario and zelda.

 

[hellwig]

[citation][nom]timbozero[/nom]Proprietary 25 GB format ? Yeah right ! Nintendo have paid extra to develop a non-Bluray disc or hardware unit ? I don't think so !What I suspect is that they are using a Bluray unit with a custom firmware to make it secure but , at the cost of Bluray playback.[/citation]
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Dude, it will be Bluray media the same way Wii games are DVD media.It's the drive unit that's proprietary and the method used to burn the media....They spin in the opposite direction, didn't you know?[/citation]
Nah, you're both over-thinking it. I'm betting the Wii-U comes with a stock HDDVD drive with the DVD portion disabled in firmware. Seriously, how would anyone know, who has HDDVDs laying around?

 

[TheViper]

gm0n3y, controller innovation would have died long ago had Nintendo stopped making hardware. They made popular the D-pad, start/select, shoulder buttons, analog sticks, rumble, triggers, IR controls, gesture controls, etc...

 

[wcnighthawk]

Ppl still watch movies on those old, archaic optical discs? Hell, my TV can stream movies online now, I don't even need my computer to do it. I don't see the problem here. A console is made for gaming and gaming only. If I was going to pay 600 dollars on a console that could do more than game, I would rather just buy a PC that could do even more than the console could.

 

[upgrade_1977]

So how are they games put on it? CD? Are they downloaded? 25GB? Not to many games can fit on that if they are downloaded, Unless they are really small games. I swear I heard they are going after the hardcore gamers market. If a game is 4gb thats only 6 games, with 1GB for the OS.
If the drive is a CD, is it gonna be dual layer or single layer? Cuz single layer is only 700MB. What kind of games can they put on that? Only other alternatives I see are they put the game on sd cards or cartridges.
Kind of curious about this now.

 

[TheViper]

Upgrade_1977, they'll use a 25 GB Blu-ray for games. An internal flash memory system of 8 GB for basic game saves and USB or SDHC for mass storage.