Nintendo Wii U Expands Entertainment Options with YouTube App

  • Game consoles are increasingly offering non-gaming entertainment options including access to online services.
  • “Movies streamed from Netflix, music courtesy Last.fm, and, of course, the ubiquitous crowd-sourced video content of YouTube have all become nearly as common uses for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii as those consoles’ respective games,” reports Digital Trends.
  • “It should come as little surprise that Nintendo’s newly-launched Wii U console should play host to a dedicated YouTube application a mere five days after its retail debut,” suggests the post.
  • “The Wii U’s official YouTube application appears to be little more than a relatively standard aesthetics and functionality update for the original Wii YouTube app, only with special accoutrements added which take advantage of the console’s exclusive features.”
  • The Wii U app — like all official YouTube apps — is free of charge. Once downloaded, users imply enter their YouTube credentials to gain access to the site’s extensive video content.
  • Currently, the app does not include functionality that might allow users to upload video content to YouTube via the Wii U. No consoles are able to upload footage via their YouTube apps, “but given the number of recent, big-name releases that boast YouTube uploading capabilities as an important feature, it only stands to reason that YouTube and the various console manufacturers would want to expand the scope of their respective YouTube applications.”

1 Comments

  1. According to GigaOM, “the app is powered by Google’s open WebM video codec. This makes the Wii app the biggest WebM deployment in the world, and gives Google a chance to show off what WebM is capable of.”
    http://gigaom.com/video/youtube-comes-to-the-wii-thanks-to-googles-webm-video-codec/

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