Wii U Won't Play Blu-rays Or DVDs

[goldenheart323]

I just wish someone, (like maybe the original reporter,) knew how to look up the actual licensing fee for DVD playback devices. How much does the DVD license actually cost???!!! Anyone? We know it's not $50 because whole DVD players can be that much. I'm guessing it's less than $10.

I'm surprised Nintendo doesn't include DVD playback. Kids are probably the best demographic for needing more DVD players as time goes by. The family dynamic changes. More kids entering the family; kids getting their own room & not sharing with a sibling anymore; parents divorcing & get shared custody; all of this creates new demand for DVD players. Do parents want to buy both a DVD player & a Nintendo, or do they want to buy just one device?

Next thing you know, the Wii U will be trying to incorporate HD-DVD.

That would be hilarious... and quite useful. Those HD-DVD movies sell for only $5 these days.
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Hey, Escapist staff:
This thread's yet another PRIME example as to why this site needs a "+1" button for comments. By the end of the 2nd page I'd read so many "Well, I have a DVD player, so I'm fine with this," comments I thought I was on the 4th page.

 

[profpeanut]

Hey, hey! Anyone who thinks this is a bad thing, and doesn't own a DVD player of any kind, raise your hand.

...what? No one? Now please reassess your violation of logic.

 

[FireScythe1992]

Look around your house now. How many devices that you have aren't DVD players. I'm willing to bet the computer you're using now is one. There is not a single person that owns ONLY a Wii or that will only own a Wii U and absolutely nothing else. I think it's an inherently neutral thing; it really doesn't affect us.

 

[suitepee7]

How will this negatively affect us? (and please don't slap a low content post ban on me, I'm asking a question)

although the console price may be lower, the fact is quite a few peopples other main dvd players are in fact their other consoles, which gives them one less reason to trade in and get the WiiU. this could mean less money to nintendo, they they play it safe with shitty kiddy games or dead certs i.e. no risky games.

of course, this is a knock on chain of events, but it is a possibility. another reason to pass on this console...

 

[Tourmeta]

Wouldn't use the feature anyways, if I bought one.

 

[suitepee7]

Well of course but one question to you all.
How many years do you think is left of this console cycle?

about 4 years. but if nintendo is competing with current, then they are behind. they should be blowing all current gen stuff out of the water, and it just... isn't. anybody with a brain will just wait a few more years (providing they already have a current gen console, not a Wii, in which case its understandable) and save their money.

IMO, and no hate to nintendo here, i like them, but they have done too little, too late. no matter how good the WiiU might be, it was not done as soon as it should have been...

 

[Helios_(DEL)]

They have a point people have mostly more then 1 dvd player these days, although nintendo have lost a selling point(buy this console get a dvd player as well)

 

[NLS]

I won't need another DVD player, so this is just fine by me. I mean, who doesn't have a DVD player today?

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Besides, physical media is so 2007.

Seriously.

Come on guys. Physical discs are going out fast. It would be stupid for Nintendo to hike up the price to squeeze in a DVD or Blue ray player at this stage. Especially when you probably have one already anyway.

Now, if it still doesn't have a hard drive, that will be a problem.

Physical discs really aren't going out that fast. Everybody I know outside of the internet, buys physical discs if given the option between digital and a disc, even if it does cost more to get a disc and case.

I may save 10 or 20 dollars buying a game a full game off of Live and putting it on my hard drive, but I'm not going to. I prefer having something physical that I can hold, that I know it is there, and that I will always have it and it can't be lost by the destruction or failure of a hard drive.

Yeah, sometimes people can just redownload later, because there is a record of previous purchase, but I have heard of way to many failures in that department to care to risk having everything I own in gaming be in digital medal.

Keep the mass-less data, I'll stay with my discs and cases.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

At first I thought that this news blows, but in all honesty, if I was interested in buying a Wii U, I don't think the lack of a built in DVD player would worry me too much.

 

[Ranorak]

So?
Anyone really needs another device to play DVD's?
I'm pretty sure my microwave can play DVD's now.

 

[Zac Smith]

I think it's a mistake, with my xbox, I don't use it for just games, it's an entertainment centre, the fact that I can play games, films music and TV via skyplayer makes it worth more to me then the Wii I have downstairs which never gets used.

 

[Roxor]

I'm surprised they're including an optical drive at all. I consider my computer's DVD burner to be a "just in case" piece of hardware, much like the floppy drive. I wouldn't be surprised if half the users here only use their computer's DVD drive when they need to reinstall Windows.

 

[Xanthious]

Just another example of just how out of touch Nintendo actually is. Nintendo is a relic trying to survive past it's prime with the use of smoke and mirrors because they are no longer able to compete based on the quality of their overall product. The sooner they go the way of Sega the better off gaming as a whole will be.

LoL? Nintendo has probably the biggest pile of money (even if their stocks went down), then they have pushed loads of cool innovations through the door.

Wii,DS,3DS,SNES.
And the franchises oh god, the franchises.

So ***** please, they're not past their prime, trust me.
They just know how to make money =D

First off, just because Nintendo got lucky courting the casual crowd and caught lightning in a bottle with the Wii doesn't mean that suddenly "They just know how to make money". They had a string of blinding failures up until the Wii took off. The Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube both were dismal failures financially.

Oddly enough those were the last two Nintendo consoles that didn't feature some form of gimmick and look at how Nintendo fared. They came in dead last both times. The N64 was outsold 3 to 1 by the PSX and the Gamecube was outsold over 7 to 1 by the PS2. I will say it again. Nintendo is no longer able to compete without some form of gimmick to get their product over. The Nintendo 64 and The Gamecube proved this. Without the nursery, nursing home, and housewife crowd the Wii would be right there the N64 and Gamecube riding the fail boat and getting outsold by it's far more technically sound competitors. The only reason the Wii is financially viable is that it was able to catch on with non gamers.

Nintendo hasn't had a successful home console that didn't use gimmicks to get over since the SNES. After the Gamecube fell on it's face they obviously gave up even trying as evidenced by the Wii and it's heavy use of motion controls to amuse the casuals. Now here we are with the WiiU soon to be released and Nintendo is proving yet again that they are unable to compete without some form of gimmick to make up for their obvious shortcomings when it comes to actual substance.

 

[Aprilgold]

Bet they spent more money on the controller design and testing then the actual hardware.
I'm kidding, but a FUCKING screen as a controller, its like the Ipad if it weren't outdated all the time {I'M KIDDING!]

And the whole argument that everyone has one that does that is an excuse that is full of flaws that you could fit an obese sized balloon in and it would still have roam to float. Lets get this straight Nintendo, your going to let us use an Ipad as a controller, but not play movies on the console?

Just another example of just how out of touch Nintendo actually is. Nintendo is a relic trying to survive past it's prime with the use of smoke and mirrors because they are no longer able to compete based on the quality of their overall product. The sooner they go the way of Sega the better off gaming as a whole will be.

LoL? Nintendo has probably the biggest pile of money (even if their stocks went down), then they have pushed loads of cool innovations through the door.

Wii,DS,3DS,SNES.
And the franchises oh god, the franchises.

So ***** please, they're not past their prime, trust me.
They just know how to make money =D

First off, just because Nintendo got lucky courting the casual crowd and caught lightning in a bottle with the Wii doesn't mean that suddenly "They just know how to make money". They had a string of blinding failures up until the Wii took off. The Nintendo 64 and the Gamecube both were dismal failures financially.

Oddly enough those were the last two Nintendo consoles that didn't feature some form of gimmick and look at how Nintendo fared. They came in dead last both times. The N64 was outsold 3 to 1 by the PSX and the Gamecube was outsold over 7 to 1 by the PS2. I will say it again. Nintendo is no longer able to compete without some form of gimmick to get their product over. The Nintendo 64 and The Gamecube proved this. Without the nursery, nursing home, and housewife crowd the Wii would be right there the N64 and Gamecube riding the fail boat and getting outsold by it's far more technically sound competitors. The only reason the Wii is financially viable is that it was able to catch on with non gamers.

Nintendo hasn't had a successful home console that didn't use gimmicks to get over since the SNES. After the Gamecube fell on it's face they obviously gave up even trying as evidenced by the Wii and it's heavy use of motion controls to amuse the casuals. Now here we are with the WiiU soon to be released and Nintendo is proving yet again that they are unable to compete without some form of gimmick to make up for their obvious shortcomings when it comes to actual substance.

You sure you got that right there bud? Those sold fairly well, and the PS 2 along with the PS1 were already talked about before the 64, and the 64 along with gamecube had some really great games. And actually, yeah, they do know how to make money by making it accessible to everyone, that what can make or break a product, assesibility. Wii you can pick up and play, while controllers take slightly longer, and the Wii is more approachable then the PS 3 and Xbox. Nintendo, great at marketing, just not so well at making.

 

[Xanthious]

You sure you got that right there bud? Those sold fairly well, and the PS 2 along with the PS1 were already talked about before the 64, and the 64 along with gamecube had some really great games. And actually, yeah, they do know how to make money by making it accessible to everyone, that what can make or break a product, assesibility. Wii you can pick up and play, while controllers take slightly longer, and the Wii is more approachable then the PS 3 and Xbox. Nintendo, great at marketing, just not so well at making.

Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while. When Nintendo recreates the Wii's success on another platform I will believe that that success was a result of anything Nintendo knowingly did as opposed to just getting lucky and being in the right place at the right time. Seeing that the 3DS is pulling subpar numbers right now I'm more inclined to continue my belief that Wii's success was more or less the result of a passing fad and the WiiU will likely wallow in mediocrity being too much for the casuals and too little too late for the core audience.

As for the numbers, Gamecube sold only 21.74 Million vs 150 Million PS2 units. Nintendo 64 sold 32.9 Million vs 102 Million PSX units.

 

[Aprilgold]

You sure you got that right there bud? Those sold fairly well, and the PS 2 along with the PS1 were already talked about before the 64, and the 64 along with gamecube had some really great games. And actually, yeah, they do know how to make money by making it accessible to everyone, that what can make or break a product, assesibility. Wii you can pick up and play, while controllers take slightly longer, and the Wii is more approachable then the PS 3 and Xbox. Nintendo, great at marketing, just not so well at making.

Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while. When Nintendo recreates the Wii's success on another platform I will believe that that success was a result of anything Nintendo knowingly did as opposed to just getting lucky and being in the right place at the right time. Seeing that the 3DS is pulling subpar numbers right now I'm more inclined to continue my belief that Wii's success was more or less the result of a passing fad and the WiiU will likely wallow in mediocrity being too much for the casuals and too little too late for the core audience.

As for the numbers, Gamecube sold only 21.74 Million vs 150 Million PS2 units. Nintendo 64 sold 32.9 Million vs 102 Million PSX units.

cool, sounds about right.

 

[Plinglebob]

Just to repeat what everyone else has said, I already have other consoles as well as a PC to watch DVDs so Nintendo saving money by not including DVD/BluRay is fine with me.

However, they do have a solid point in saying "You've got one anyway, you don't need another". I would much rather them include the ability to stream videos, music, and movies from my computer like the 360 and PS3 can. That would be a much more relevant capability to today's world than DVD playback. They should also include as many formats as possible, including the rare ones like .mkv and FLAC and stuff like that.

Make it so you can stream it to the controller and you've got a deal

 

[Pyode]

Physical discs really aren't going out that fast. Everybody I know outside of the internet, buys physical discs if given the option between digital and a disc, even if it does cost more to get a disc and case.

I'm not saying they are going to be obsolete tomorrow, but they are going fast.

The Xbox 360 has already begun putting games up a few months after the game was released. The XBL arcade and PlayStation store have expanded massively in the past few years. Steam is insanely popular and Direct2Drive isn't doing to bad either.

On the movie side of things, in the few years that Netflix has been around they have already changed their primary focus from DVD and Blue-Ray rentals to instant streaming. Hulu is also a booming business.

Digital media is overtaking physical media and it is happening quickly.

I may save 10 or 20 dollars buying a game a full game off of Live and putting it on my hard drive, but I'm not going to. I prefer having something physical that I can hold, that I know it is there, and that I will always have it and it can't be lost by the destruction or failure of a hard drive.

Yeah, sometimes people can just redownload later, because there is a record of previous purchase, but I have heard of way to many failures in that department to care to risk having everything I own in gaming be in digital medal.

Well this isn't really about which form is better. I personally prefer digital but I acknowledge the benefits of having a physical copy.

For example, getting new items is often cheaper and easier if you get them digitally, but the prices on physical disc drops much quicker (many games on Xbox Arcade are still full price after several years, but that's mostly a Microsoft thing) and you don't have the option of buying them used.

As for the safety issue, I have never had or heard of anyone having a problem like that. Could you provide some examples?

The only way I see that happening is if you lose your account entirely, but I cant imagine that happening often enough to be statistically relevant. After all, a flood or tornado could come through your home and destroy all of your physical copies too.

Keep the mass-less data, I'll stay with my discs and cases.

Again, it's fine that you prefer physical, but my point was never that one was objectively better than the other.

My point was simply that digital will be the primary way that we interact with our media, and soon.

 

[GeorgW]

They're completely right. I have 3 DVDs and one Blu-ray player, I don't need another one!!
Great news, totally worth it to save on cost. It makes a lot more sense than their old "The Wiimotes won't use rechargeable batteries cuz everyone has regular ones." That was just stupid.