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Major Britten

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Major Britten

Major Britten

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Netflix on Wii in HD

US movie streaming service Netflix will be made available on Wii in the near future, according to StreamingMedia’s Dan Rayburn.

The analyst said in a blog post that he recently received a series of photos showing that the service is in the “testing stages” for Nintendo’s console. Rayburn added that he had confirmed the legitimacy of the images with “someone involved in the project”.

Interestingly, he suggested that Nintendo may opt to delay the launch of the service from late 2009 until early next year when the company will release a high definition Wii.

“What I'm hearing is that Nintendo originally planned to bring the Netflix service to the Wii before the end of this year, which still might take place, but that Nintendo is also considering holding off on the Netflix service until they release their next generation Wii HD unit in early 2010.”

Netflix had 11.1 million US subscribers as of September 30. For $8.99 a month, members can stream unlimited movies and TV episodes to their TVs and computers via Netflix ready devices. The service has been available on Xbox 360 since November 2008 and will debut on PS3 this month.

More smoke to the fire.

Thing is, if Nintendo do release a Wii HD which has improved graphics that are on par with the 360/PS3 will 3rd parties actually release their big titles on the thing instead of making shitty mini game collections and shovelware?

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northy

northy

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Who exactly is the Wii HD supposed to appeal to?

Hardcore will still moan that it's aimed at casuals and casuals might notice the resolution difference but it certainly won't be a deal breaker.

As seen from the DSi and iPhone 3Gs, despite the availability of a higher specced variations developers bothering with enhanced versions is very much the exception rather than the rule.

Waste of time if you ask me since there's not likely to be the introduction of anything nearly as innovative as the relatively conservative DSi upgrade.

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Stanley

Stanley

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Netflix on Wii in HD

More smoke to the fire.

Thing is, if Nintendo do release a Wii HD which has improved graphics that are on par with the 360/PS3 will 3rd parties actually release their big titles on the thing instead of making shitty mini game collections and shovelware?

Well they are already are if you consider Rock Band, Call of Duty 4, and a few others but all Wii HD will do is upscale existing Wii software so I can't really see anything changing.

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MK-1601

MK-1601

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Hardcore will still moan that it's aimed at casuals

:P

Waste of time if you ask me since there's not likely to be the introduction of anything nearly as innovative as the relatively conservative DSi upgrade.

Impressive that you can determine the spec of an unannounced machine based on a third-hand rumour about video streaming.

There's loads of obvious (and importantly, cheap) potential areas for improvement for a Wii hardware revision. A decent amount of storage for a start.

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Red Alignment

Red Alignment

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There's loads of obvious (and importantly, cheap) potential areas for improvement for a Wii hardware revision. A decent amount of storage for a start.

True. The Black Wii presumably has just the pathetically small 512Mb flash RAM that the classic Wii is lumbered with, and even that seemed limited back in 2006, when I remember 1Gb SD cards becoming available for nowt.

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Major Britten

Major Britten

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I'd definitely buy a Wii HD. There are a ton of great Wii games I've never played since I sold mine.

Me too, I was actually thinking of getting another one before xmas but Im going to hold of for a bit now and wait till around E3 next year as thats most likely when they will announce the thing. It will be interesting to see what improvements Nintendo will make. Hopefully they will boost the power of the thing and make it at least as powerful as the 360, Nintendo themselves have admitted that the main reason for the Wiis recent slump is down to a lack of decent games, with most 3rd parties concentrating on more powerful consoles while the Wii gets PS2/PSP ports with tacked on motion controls. It will be interesting to see how things will go if they do release a more powerful machine as it will be a much more even playing field when Sony and MS both release their motion controllers next year.

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scottcr

scottcr

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I wouldn't expect the next wii to be as powerful as the 360... for most people, I imagine there won't be a huge difference - but I'm not convinced.

I do want better online... I want the always on Wii connect 24/7 they spoke about, more internal storage to allow larger games to be downloaded - I want the Mii channel and Animal Crossing to come together into one downloadable game set on Wuhu Island.

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Meh

Meh

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Me too, I was actually thinking of getting another one before xmas but Im going to hold of for a bit now and wait till around E3 next year as thats most likely when they will announce the thing. It will be interesting to see what improvements Nintendo will make. Hopefully they will boost the power of the thing and make it at least as powerful as the 360, Nintendo themselves have admitted that the main reason for the Wiis recent slump is down to a lack of decent games, with most 3rd parties concentrating on more powerful consoles while the Wii gets PS2/PSP ports with tacked on motion controls. It will be interesting to see how things will go if they do release a more powerful machine as it will be a much more even playing field when Sony and MS both release their motion controllers next year.

Not going to happen.

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Sprite Machine

Sprite Machine

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They won't change the platform spec. They might release an HD Wii that plays (and upscales) Wii games - and they might enable natively HD games to play on it, so long as they're also Wii-compatible - but that'll be it.

I'd expect the predictable storage increase / motionplus built-in, yada-yada-yada. They might even put DVD playback into it. Lolz.

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DC Lemon

DC Lemon

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They won't change the platform spec. They might release an HD Wii that plays (and upscales) Wii games - and they might enable natively HD games to play on it, so long as they're also Wii-compatible - but that'll be it.

Especially in early 2010. They can't do an Apple and just dump the thing on the market at a moment's notice with significantly upgraded specs.

'Where are the games?'

'Where are the what now?'

And especially especially before Super Mario Galaxy 2 is released in all its 480p splendour.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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They won't change the platform spec. They might release an HD Wii that plays (and upscales) Wii games - and they might enable natively HD games to play on it, so long as they're also Wii-compatible - but that'll be it.

I'd expect the predictable storage increase / motionplus built-in, yada-yada-yada. They might even put DVD playback into it. Lolz.

That's what I've been anticipating since the Wii was announced. I would've thought it was easy for them to give the Wii hardware a bit of a spec bump to provide an optional 720p mode on new games. I doubt they'll even do scaling for old software - it's not like they did it for VC games.

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scottcr

scottcr

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I imagine developers will need to cater for two specs - maybe better textures and a few extra effects if you're running a game on WiiHD... but we're not going to see WiiHD exclusive games.

Having said that - those vids of SMG and Wind Waker running in HD look brilliant.

I would like to see an improvement to the on board storage, more memory and a better online system.

They would benefit from a more obviously accessible shop and stuff, like there is on the NXE.

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northy

northy

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Impressive that you can determine the spec of an unannounced machine based on a third-hand rumour about video streaming.

There's loads of obvious (and importantly, cheap) potential areas for improvement for a Wii hardware revision. A decent amount of storage for a start.

Well if you lack the analytical abilities to determine which aspects of an upgrade machine can't be changed to maintain compatibility with the existing Wii then that's your problem, not mine. It's all going to be cosmetic...

Extra memory... if you need more than the internal then you know how to use an SD card

Removal of GC support... only people who own one already are likely to care about this

HD support via HDMI connection... does nothing spectacular for existing library and future "HD enhanced" releases will be rare IMO

Wiimote with integrated MotionPlus... purely cosmetic

Introduction of DVD or Blu-Ray or Movie Streaming... fair enough but not why most people bought one in the first place

Some people will obviously upgrade (as I did with DSi because it cost £25 using some dodgy dealing) but it doesn't seem worthwhile upgrading otherwise because the promise of a couple of 720p Nintendo games per year doesn't seem worth it.

I look forward to Nintendo proving me wrong but your assertion that you can't analyse the situation based upon prior hardware launches just tells me you that you're just a hopeless neophile.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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I imagine developers will need to cater for two specs - maybe better textures and a few extra effects if you're running a game on WiiHD... but we're not going to see WiiHD exclusive games.

Having said that - those vids of SMG and Wind Waker running in HD look brilliant.

In that case why even bother developing better textures and extra effects which only a minority will be able to see, when simply putting the games up into HD makes a huge difference?

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scottcr

scottcr

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was thinking that upping the res would make games with low quality or muddy textures look even worse when the vaseline filter is removed... thinking Cursed Mountain, a game I recently enjoyed - but I really don't think it would benefit at all from upscaling. SMG on the other hand... :ph34r:

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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I don't think simply adding an upscaler is going to be good enough. Nintendo would be wise to have an HD Wii with similar specs to the 360, say, and then actively court publishers to create special Wii Editions of some of this generation's biggest HD multiplatform titles. You could then have games which are compatible with both Wii and Wii HD - ie games created for the Wii but upscaled for the HD console - and others which only work with Wii HD (the multiformat ports as mentioned, and any other original titles).

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Warszawa

Warszawa

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I think it will be more powerful - it'll reach 360 standard or thereabouts. Nintendo have made plenty of noise recently about Wii sales suffering because there hasn't been enough software - they're not stupid. What way to instantly boost software sales and take away one of the biggest selling points of your competition by releasing an upgrade which not only offers HD but makes it incredibly easy for 3rd parties to port games across? This is near-five year old technology you're talking about by the time its released - just as the GameCube level Wii was upon its arrival. Free money for Nintendo, free money for developers and a thorn in the eye of Microsoft and Sony.

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Alex W.

Alex W.

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I don't think simply adding an upscaler is going to be good enough. Nintendo would be wise to have an HD Wii with similar specs to the 360, say, and then actively court publishers to create special Wii Editions of some of this generation's biggest HD multiplatform titles. You could then have games which are compatible with both Wii and Wii HD - ie games created for the Wii but upscaled for the HD console - and others which only work with Wii HD (the multiformat ports as mentioned, and any other original titles).

Maybe they can make Wii HD editions of Wii editions of GameCube games. Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition HD EX Plus Alpha Ouroboros.

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bcass

bcass

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The main reason I can see them wanting to release new hardware soon is because they totally and royally fucked-up the design of the current model in terms of system protection and system updating. Not just in terms of all the holes they left for hackers, but the general poor design of the front-end and its limited ability to interact with games once they've loaded.

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