On-demand TV is all the rage at the moment. TiVo and Sky+ boxes let you record, pause and rewind live TV, and Samuel L Jackson is never done advertising on-demand content for Virgin Media in the UK. Sony even got in on the act last year with PlayTV, which let you record free-to-view terrestrial channels and stream it to your PSP through Remote Play.
Looks like Nintendo’s getting in on the act soon – in Japan, at least. All the info, and why you should be scared, after the break.
Last week The Times in the UK revealed – rather accurately with the opener “In its relentless quest for world living-room domination…” – Nintendo is putting together its very own on-demand service packed with original content created exclusively for them and the Wii. The service, titled the Wiinoma Channel, will feature all kinds of content from cooking shows to cartoons, all downloadable through your Wii console. Some shows will be free to watch, chock full of advertising, and some will come at a price.
This is where it gets scary. The article opener could not have been closer to the truth: Nintendo really are going for living-room domination. They’ve already got everybody (and I don’t mean “every gamer”, I really mean everybody) thinking they’re exercising or playing music, or huddling round the TV together for a good chart or graph. Now they’ll be huddling round their TV sets to watch television too.
According to the article, Japan’s TV is actually quite like everyone else’s: full of re-runs and relying on washed-up “celebrities” getting up to all kinds of “hilarious” hi-jinks. To TV producers, the idea of watching tailored content through a games console is their worst nightmare. When you take the Everybody Votes Channel in point, you realise that Nintendo have already been collating a huge amount of market research about their userbase. They’ve already learned about genders, age, hobbies, favorite pets, all sorts of information that could either be really useful or really useless.
The Wiinoma Channel could be the anti-Gran Turismo TV. Whereas GTTV is tailored towards gearheads only – and hence isn’t really interesting, save for Top Gear which is brilliant and anyone who says it isn’t is just wrong – Wiinoma will have all sorts of family-friendly content ideal for the average, everyday Wii owner. Which would explain why most of the content will be cartoons.
The potential for profit here is undeniable, both through pay-for content and advertising revenues. If you thought Nintendo was cashing in on the Wii’s success before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Wii TV is coming, you can’t stop it, and what’s more, it’ll probably do really, really well among casual Wii users.
But would you use an on-demand TV service on your Wii?
Nintendo to take on broadcasters with Wii TV – Times Online
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Oh Christ… You’ve got to be joking. I’m in Australia, so we don’t have ‘Cable’. I don’t even know what ‘Cable’ is. We have Foxtel, though, and I’d prefer to pay the $60 p/month than buy a Wii.
I don’t think that Wii TV will sell the console. People already have Pay TV, and normal TV. Wii TV certainly won’t make me buy the console.
I wouldn’t as I would much prefer just to turn over my av to my sky box rather than waiting half an hour for the wii’s crappy internet to connect and download
Let me put it to you this way…
If I was high, I don’t think i’d watch the Wii channel.
It it SO boring to watch someone play a video game. Why would you watch it on demand?
This is just another reason not to sell my wii.
If I sell it, someone will by it in a week, and they might get wii tv, and i could have prevented that from happening.
Awoll SGF did you even READ the article it’s not a Wii channel on your TV it’s a TV channel on your Wii. On a less idiot bashing note anyone else see a Parody Song in the future?
It’s true though……… top gear rules!