BBC iPlayer Coming To The Wii April 11, 2008
Read more Consoles , Entertainment , Gizmodo UK , Online , TV , Wii
In a surprise hook-up, the BBC has announced that it will be porting its iPlayer catch-up TV service to the Nintendo Wii console.
The insanely popular iPlayer service, which has just reported 42 million downloads and streams in the last 3 months, will be a channel on the Wii’s Internet Channel.
Once the iPlayer service for Wii is live, a message will be sent to all Wii consoles in the UK currently connected to the Internet to let them know it’s ready.
David Yarnton, General Manager, Nintendo UK, commented:
"This exciting alliance with the BBC is yet another way in which Nintendo is looking to broaden the market for its products by offering compelling and relevant content to families.”
So the question now must be, when will it be coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360? Ah, there’s the glitch. The reason....
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
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Quite interesting also that the wii was intended as only a games machine and not a multimedia hub - such as not being able to play dvds. Guess the iplayer was too good a deal to turn down! Shame that you have to buy the internet channel on wii, as I can't see myself surfing much with the wiimote. Still, it's definitely worth it.
It does leave the question however, what is the best way to spend the other 500 points that I'll be left with after buying the internet channel?
Upsettingly, even with a good connection, it didn't seem to stream well.
Even more upsetting was the fact that you couldn't do full screen.
Great news. Maybe it'll be introduced alongside wiiware as a proper channel?
iplayer is the best on iPod touch or iPhone but if you want to watch it on a tv then you have to buy the £20 av cable but this dranes the batery. The other problem is quality if you have a 32 inch tv then the video is playing at about 20 times the size it should be played at. I think it should also be on ps3