Nintendo TVii is launched in the US and Canada today. The service was originally planned to be available to Wii U owners at launch but has took longer to organise and implement than originally thought. TVii is a service meant to integrate all TV content and Wii U apps, including entertainment streaming apps like from Amazon and Hulu, into a single interface displayed upon your Wii U gamepad. Also you have social media integration and can, for instance, Tweet about the shows you are watching from your Wii U gamepad on-screen keyboard.
Take a look at the video below to see the promise that Nintendo TVii holds...
The system looks really good, doesn’t it? However, the version of TVii coming to US and Canada today isn’t as fully formed as the promotional video shows it to be. Significantly absent from the launch version of Nintendo TVii are; Netflix integration and TiVo recording/ timeshifting functionality. Both these features are due to appear in “early 2013”.
In a press release Nintendo of America President and COO, Reggie Fils-Aime, said “After Dec. 20, you’ll never look at your TV the same way again. Wii U owners have already experienced the transformative effect that the GamePad has on game play and social interaction. Nintendo TVii shows how the integrated second screen of the GamePad can also transform and enhance the TV viewing experience. Welcome to the new world of TVii.” The press release also does a good job of summarising the utility of the TVii; “Nintendo TVii maximizes Wii U owners’ current cable, satellite and video-on-demand services by pulling all of their available content sources into one place. This empowers Wii U owners to focus on what they want to watch and not how they want to watch. And once users find the show, sporting event or movie they want, they press an icon and Nintendo TVii does the rest.”
The competition to dominate the space beneath your TV and thus your payments for content consumption is getting really hot. Other consoles offer a good choice of content consumption, media playing and streaming services and have plans to extend them but Nintendo is first to the post-iPad market in which companies have seen the gains that can be made from well executed online content stores. If the TVii works really slickly, thanks to the Wii U controller pad, it could help the Wii U get a fantastic foothold within the market before other tech giants like Microsoft and Sony, not to mention Google and Apple, can implement similar rival devices.
TVii is a free update to your Wii U. No additional hardware is required to get it up and running, you just need to live in North America at this time! Hopefully Nintendo will get the TVii service working across this side of the pond soon...
