Homebrewers show Nintendo how to add interesting features to the Wii

Written by Ryan Hewson

Thursday, 14 August 2008 05:44

Really, Nintendo ought to be embarrassed. I had always assumed that there was some technical reason (like copy protection) that was responsible for the Wii's lack of DVD video playback. As it turns out, not so much.

Some enterprising hackers have combined elbow grease, Mplayer libraries, and the Twilight Princess executable-hack into a workable DVD player for the Wii. Full instructions can be found at Wii Fanboy. As long as you have an SD card, and a copy of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you can add this homebrew channel to your system without mucking anything up.

Which brings us to the aforementioned embarrassment: what the hell, Nintendo? You just didn't want to pay the fee, or what? Some people would have loved this functionality at the outset. It worked wonders for the PS2. Sure, everyone and their dog has a DVD player these days, but a spare one for the kids' room (or whatever) never hurts. And the fact that some people tinkering with MPlayer managed to make it work really reflects badly on them. It was always a pure software issue; nothing more.

Now, stay tuned for the announcement of "official" DVD support for the Wii, and the attendent crooning and swooning over the paradign-shifting company and their amazing new PS2-era feature. I'd bet significant money on that happening. They fucking hate it when people start fiddling with SD cards.

Comments (2) Add Comment

...
written by Birdman, August 14, 2008

Wow
That's bull shit
I can't believe they got it to work
Yeah, I wonder why it could not out of the box

...
written by Antony H, August 15, 2008

I would have loved the feature but more still I would have prefered MP4 or AVI playback via the SD slot. I'd love a dedicated Media Channel from Nintendo where I could throw on my MP3s and Videos.

Makes sense not going with DVD Video though.....
Liscensing fees for the Wii would have been about $7-$15 per machine. Which is either cost passed onto everyone (which may have deterred some casual gamers) or less profit per machine. Either way it works out bad for Nintendo.

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