Which service was Nintendo TVii again? Oh yeah, the cable/program guide thing. In case anyone in Europe was waiting for that Wii U service to launch, you can officially stop waiting now — Nintendo of Europe has given up because it’s too hard.
It’s one thing to take a single country and get all of its cable providers on board in order to transformer your Wii control pad into a universal remote that hardly anyone uses. In Europe, with its individual countries and languages and late-night German trivia call-in shows and phone sex ads, it’s nearly impossible. So Nintendo decided to stop trying.
At Nintendo of Europe, we continue to challenge ourselves to develop a range of entertaining experiences for all to enjoy. Due to the extremely complex nature of localising multiple television services across a diverse range of countries with varied licensing systems, regrettably we have taken the decision not to launch the Nintendo TVii service within the European region. Although on this occasion we did not anticipate such challenges, we will always strive to develop a range of entertaining experiences for all our users to enjoy.
I was actually rather excited about Nintendo TVii when the company first showed off the feature prior to the launch of the Wii U. Then the system launched, I set it up once and never used it again. Until I saw this announcement via Game Informer, I had completely forgotten that Nintendo TVii ever existed.
In case you live in Europe and were indeed looking forward to the service, my sincere condolences. All the advice I can offer is try find solace in your currently exclusive Nintendo Anime Channel for the 3DS, with its reruns of Kirby, Pokemon: Advanced and Inazuma Eleven.
Comments
17 responses to “Now They’re Never Getting Nintendo TVii In Europe”
I have seen some of the TV offered in parts of Europe. Christ, I’ve seen some of the ads…..pretty out there
I wonder if they’ll patch the icon out now
I don’t think this missing takes anything a way from the many more meaningful reasons to own a Wii U.
Play games. Want media, build a media center PC, use a chromecast, Plex etc etc. It is not something a feature Nintendo or any other consoles should be concerned with (Universal remote that is).
I agree for the most part but the Wii U game pad is surprisingly good for watching things on (and browsing the internet). The YouTube app is garbage but if you pair it with a PC and use that to setup a playlist it’s actually a really nice alternative. I wouldn’t buy any of the consoles for media, but like the Kinect on the XBOX One the game pad actually brings something to the table that makes me wish the console was better at the fundamental aspects of playing media.
I can understand the rationale behind this to be honest, patching together agreements and deals amongst all the cable providers in countries such as US/Canada/Japan would be difficult enough, but when you consider an area that encompasses literally 50 different countries all with their own specialised Television organisations and providers. It’s not surprising to see Nintendo of Europe realising it to be an insurmountable task and effectively throwing it in the too hard basket, the addition of the Europe-exclusive (for the time being) Nintendo anime channel is a nice way to at least soften the perceived blow.
But what about Australia?
From what I can assume now, Australia and New Zealand are the only regions now that are still left in Limbo regarding Nintendo TVii. Unlike Europe I really can’t see the program being that much of a hassle to set up here, but considering Australia tends to follow Europe when it comes to things like this, I wouldn’t be surprised if the icon disappears with little to no fanfare, or compensation, for us.
Yeah good question.
I wonder if unlike Europe who have too much, we might have too little with the bigger players unwilling to play ball
What’s an Australia?
>Nintendo of Europe has given up because it’s too hard.
a company after my own heart
How do you pronounce “TVii” anyway? Tee-Vee-Eee
I think it’s tee-veeeeeee
I can now only imagine it said in Charles Martinet’s high-pitched Mario voice.
Well Nintendo have said themselves that there is a replacement to the Wii U getting developed. So if following the trend that they start development after the release of the current one, then they are over two years into development. With the Wii U not setting the world on fire, and a console lifetime of 5 years (the stupid long time on the last gen was a joke). I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t here talk about a new Nintendo home console after they release Zelda Wii U. Because I can’t see any major releases after Zelda honestly. Just my 2 cents.
That’s not even close to 5 years.
You can’t see any major releases after Zelda because they haven’t announced them yet.
Mah, at least they had a chance. We have only one “cable” service in NZ and it most likely wont make a deal with Nintendo.
I don’t even watch TV much at all. Even if I did, I wouldn’t use my Wii U to do it. That is for gaming. I have enough remotes for controlling my media already.
Can we sue Nintendo for not delivering on a promise? (similar to what people do when Sony and Microsoft do stuff like this)
You can theoretically but you shouldn’t, just like anyone. A proposed feature is also specifically NOT a promise.
and if you get a judge that thinks you are being ridiculous but still win, you might find yourself with a reward that is only enough to buy a cheap brand of universal remote (i.e. the actual financial damage done due to a lack of the feature)