Oh, Reggie. You used to be such a gaming icon, hell, I even bought your Wii nunchuck t-shirt. But how can you judge your fanbase so incorrectly, saying Wii owners don’t care about Netflix HD?
True, the Wii isn’t HD at 480p, so anyone serious about streaming Netflix video in HD probably owns a PS3 or Xbox 360, but Fils-Aime’s remarks in an interview with NBC show he’s clearly out of touch with the industry. It’s not like people buy consoles these days just to wave their arms in the air pretending they’re Muhammad Ali – these machines are multimedia hubs capable of doing so much more than gaming now.
Fils-Aime’s full quote on the matter:
“the vast majority of content for streaming on Netflix is not HD content, so there really is no loss for the Wii consumer with the fact they can’t get any HD content through our system”.
We’ve been hearing a lot of talk about a Wii HD (some say it’ll even contain a Blu-ray drive), but Fils-Aime took the opportunity to deny (again) that it’s on its way. He claimed Nintendo will only release a new console when everyone’s bought a Wii& – over 26 million have been sold reportedly – so we’ve got to wait until the market is “tapped out” until we see anything new.
Fils-Aime predicts that won’t happen for “years”. So, despite the Wii being on sale since 2006, don’t count on Nintendo actually pleasing gamers – they’re too busy after your Mum’s money. [CNBC via Kotaku]
Steve
Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 2:25 PMWhile I personally watch everything in HD wherever possible, I think he’s actually got a point. HD adoption rates aside, not everywhere in the world has internet capable of adequately streaming full HD content. Then there’s the fact that the majority of Wii owners probably DON’T care about HD. Reggie’s not out of touch with the industry: the industry has changed. Perhaps it’s time for the hardcore and the elitists to get in touch with that (or at least accept it).
David Anderton
Monday, January 18, 2010 at 3:37 AMI would have to disagree with ya Steve, I would say most people who bought a Wii bought it for the revolutionary control scheme, but they would still like to see multimedia in the highest resolution possible.