Wii U’s TVii service delayed until December

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   November 19th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

Wii U’s free video application TVii will be launching sometime in December, confirmed Nintendo earlier this week.

The absence of TVii was significantly felt during the launch of Nintendo’s first-ever high-definition (HD) console in North America yesterday, i.e. November 18.

During a special Wii U event at Los Angeles in September, the company had revealed TVii, an application that will allow gamers to search, watch and engage with a wide range of shows, films and sporting events.

The TVii service will not only work with cable and satellite, but will also allow users to stream videos through services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Video, thus giving them an even greater variety of options to choose from.

While the application will not charge any fee or require any equipment, users will need to have a subscription to whatever service they want to access through TVii.

Apart from the fore-mentioned activities, the upcoming free video application will also allow users to interact with each other using Wii U’s unique tablet controller, GamePad.

Users will be able to connect with each other through Nintendo’s social hub Miiverse, as well as the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

While Nintendo had planned on releasing the TVii service at the same time as its next-generation console in North America, it has ended up getting delayed until December.

The much-awaited service is expected to add even more appeal to the latest console that Nintendo has introduced into the market, thus marking the beginning of an era of next-generation consoles.

Wii U is available in North America in two versions, the Wii U deluxe edition and the Wii U basic edition.

Both the versions differ from each other on various accounts, namely colour, built-in memory, accessories, games, etc.

However, the major factor that sets the two apart and will eventually drive the consumer’s choice is their price. While the deluxe version is slightly expensive, bearing a price tag of $350, the basic version can be purchased for $300.

The console was launched just a day ago in America, with the Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime arriving at the special Wii U event in New York City to make the first sale of the console with his own hands following the mid-night countdown.

Being the first HD console by Nintendo, the fans have huge expectations off it, especially with the hardware attracting the interest and winning the faith of a number of publishers, including Ubisoft and Electronic Arts (EA).

Launching with 23 titles, Wii U is expected to have a great holiday season, though some analysts are predicting an immediate decline in the sales of the console at the beginning of next year as they expect Microsoft and Sony to announce their next-generation consoles during that time period.