Reggie Fils-Aime: Wii users don't care for Netflix HD
By Vlad Savov 
posted January 15th 2010 3:54AM
posted January 15th 2010 3:54AM
We seriously have to question the sanity of some of these high-ranking corporate types. Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America boss and fearless orator, has joined Andy Rubin of Google in claiming that his customers do not require a feature so prevalent nowadays that it has become close to a basic standard. While the Xbox 360 and PS3 are capable of streaming full HD movies from Netflix at no extra cost, Reggie has stated his belief that "there really is no loss for the Wii consumer" because "the vast majority" of Netflix streaming content isn't HD anyway. Reiterating his longstanding, but never adequately explained, hesitance toward HD, Reggie has also claimed that the 26 million Wii console owners out there have voted with their wallets and will be quite happy to continue putt-putting along at standard def. Skip past the break to see him speaking his heresy with a straight face. 
and once again, i find myself dreading nightmares due to a picture on engadget..
@glenskey No wonder he hates HD; he looks like a thawed caveman.
@glenskey
Your avatar gives me nightmares.
@dcoke "I might just be a simple caveman lawyer..."
@Bender Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts.
@dcoke But you forget that HD is so easy that even a caveman can do it. :)
ATI has some budget chipsets that can do HD.
@dcoke
Jose Cansaco plays the wii?
@brnkcv 4-Player Tank Anyone?
@glenskey
What do Wii Owners know? Those things can't even play DVD's. Waste of money if you ask me (unless I was 10 years old and all I played was the kid games),
This is just one of the many reasons why I got rid of my Wii. And I say that as someone who used to be a Senior Editor at a prominent Nintendo blog.
@SuperRob
WOW a senior editor of a blog, that's impressive. If you bought a Wii for graphics or HD capability you obviously didn't do your research before you bought your product.
@SuperRob
Hehehe... A Senior Editor on a Nintendo Blog. That's a pretty sweet business card. And not just anybody can start their own blog and dub themselves SENIOR EDITOR. ;)
@SuperRob I didn't get rid of mine, but I certainly haven't used it in the last 6 months. The novelty wore off and after that you don't have a lot left to go on. I didn't get a Wii for HD, I already had a 360 and PC for that.
@SuperRob: Are you Rob Galbreath?
Ah, I have an idea who Rob is, and it's not just any blog. It was up there with IGN during its time.
@SuperRob
Ah, I have an idea who Rob is and it isn't just any blog. It was up there with IGN during its time.
@KAL326 Wii awesomeness picked up when Kittycorp: MeowMix started model hacking for smash bros. brawl. Glad I kept mine.
of course, what he meant to say is "ah crap, why didn't we make a HD wii when we had the chance!?"
@Wiggy Fuzz What did you expect? how could he praise something they are not selling and is on the competitors machines?
He probably meant the millions of Wii users aren't even asking for HD capabilities vs the people that don't own one asking for HD capabilities they aren't even going to buy anyways...
They went for cheap and got away with 480i
@(Unverified)
the crazy thing here is that Wii cost even more then X360 right now so you can ask yourself if its cheap or not!
I dont know why i even bothered to buy a wii in the first place. Maybe simply out of habit. I always buy all consoles to enjoy all exclusive titles but this time i sold my Wii since i felt like i am being cheated hard with crapy HW, no DVD player, not that many original games (sort of tired of Mario really, i want something original!!! only Zelda was appealing to me)
Another thing is that i felt like Wii was not a serious gaming console anymore. Its more for children and i guess that is a good thing since there has been a gap in that area. I would maybe buy it again (wii 2?) when my daughter grows up a bit more. I'm sure she find it more fun then PS3/X360 games at the age 5-6.
On the other hand both X360 and PS3 have similar controls and games coming soon enough so i'm afraid Wii will be loosing big time once consumers realize they are paying for a overpriced console.
@(Unverified) 480p. Check yoself before you wreck yoself.
@(Unverified):
Why does he have to say anything at all? The Wii isn't HD - thus it makes sense for it to not stream HD movies.
I hate Reggie. He's a douche. He personally blocked the ONLY good looking game for the Wii from coming to America because he felt Americans didn't want it. That game had English audio tracks and was about a Marine by the way. The game is completed, would cost them nothing to bring it over...but nope, douchebag mcgee reggie didn't want it.
The guy acts like he knows what gamers want. Well you know what Reggie, your system made have sold the most units, but it also gets the least play. It's the system for drinking parties, and that's it.
@Wiggy Fuzz
"Wii users don't care for Netflix HD"
Ya, because Wii "users" don't turn on the system. Of course you don't care about the visual quality if it's never showing anything.
@postmasterSteve
In a 1080p world with 4K on the way you're bitching about someone labelling the Wii as 480i over the obviously "game-changing" 480p?
Oh - and I hadn't realized that myspace-speak was getting popular again...
@THizzle7XU
I am so sick of people saying that Wii owners don't use their systems. Speak for yourself. My children use the Wii console as often as I will let them. It is a childrens' toy primarily and a 'casual gamer' console secondarily. Nintendo has always been about younger players. YOU ARE NOT THEIR TARGET MARKET! So, why do you feel compelled to wise crack about a product that was never intended for you in the first place?
@glennS
Because instead of dumbing down a console for children, they should have made a good one and produced child friendly games.
Friend codes? I can understand to a certain extent, but give me the option of a global system where I can find out if my real friends are playing. I'd much rather my youngster playing online with his friends as opposed to that guy down the street with a sign in his yard...
@glennS
BS. Everyone I talk to always say they haven't touched their system since the first month they had it. Many of my friends thought they would get it so they could play with their wives, and they play Wii Fit for a few weeks, and then didn't touch it. Even the Neilson data on console play time backs me up. Wii is dead last in actual play time and not even close to PS3 or 360. Look it up.
I think he's "LOST" and my family has enjoyed watching EVERY episode up to Season 5 of "LOST" in HD... typical "Let them eat cake" attitude from rich, out-of-touch corporate type.
@wxrman
agreed.
How can he speak for so many people? He got a survey that we dont care about HD ?
I played Harvest Moon on my 40" Screen and it looked terrible.
Oh wait, Im supposed to buy another TV for the Wii .. alright ..
@kiyu727
I get your point, but using Harvest Moon as an example is like saying you watched Sanford & Son and were disappointed with the quality.
@Moonchild
Sanford and Son = Greatness
And once again I find myself questioning the intelligence of Engadget editors. If people that bought the Wii cared about HD they wouldn't have bought it. And how could people stream HD content on a console that isn't capable of doing it, in your opinion?
@gp
Exactly.
It sounds as though Reggie has his consumer base sussed. I think we forget on here that lots of consumers don't really understand HD.
My wife and I have a HD projector, and my wife openly admits that she can't really tell a difference between the Wii (over component) and the Blu Ray player... but you know what, we didn't buy the Wii for it's HD capabilities (even though it's got mad HD skillz), we bought it for MarioKart.
Also, there's no Netflix in the UK. We get DVD's & such from LOVEFiLM.
Go Reggie & co. Just make sure the Wii 2 has some HDZ. K?
@gp
It's possible to care about HD and still want to play the games on the system. I still play games on my Wii, but if it had HD I'd play on it a lot more often.
It is also possible to care about HD and not be terribly impressed with the prospect of streaming it for an entire movie or TV show. Will the streaming version of Dark Knight or Watchmen hold a candle to the BD version that Netflix will already gladly send me? Probably not...
Then again, if I am not interested in paying even a dedicated rental price for something there's a bit of a chance I don't care about it all that much. So whether or not it's HD or not might not be terribly relevant.
@gp
Just because Wii users bought games for other then HD quailty does not translate into they buy movies without seeing it in HD. People love watching movies in HD, they bought the Wii for different reasons. My Question is why even make a big deal about Netflix on the Wii.
i don't get it.... if everyone hates nintendo, why're they still getting money?
the FBI should look into this, they could be printing their own money....
@mocax since that's what poor people get their kids, since they can't afford a real gaming console. Sadly the majority of games that are even playable on that system are their own brand; since it seems to me that they refuse to give out their console secrets to other gaming company's so that they can take advantage of the wii's true potential. Let me think of another selfish company that did that that was deemed rather successful, oh that's right Sega.
@dcoke The above comment is full of win.
The PS3? Now that's a real gaming console. The 360? That's a real gaming console and some more.
@mocax
you may have noticed one or more of the following...
a) Engadget writers/commenters =/= Everybody
b) Everyone in the developed world has a DS
c) When the Wii first came out, they sold about a bajillion units based on about 3 really fun titles.
d) Nintendo's hardware is profitable, they don't need software sales.
@mocax
the PSP Go is kind of fail and still people buy it.
Mostly cuz there are many people out there who buy stuff only cuz its "new" and the "latest" gadget in Sonys PSP line.
And every parent knows how annoying kids are so a DS or a Wii is a good way to keep then silent.
I mean, would you buy a 14 yearsold a Xbox or a Wii ?
As a parent (which Im not) I'd choose the Wii
@revoltracers
The Wii is leagues ahead of the competition for the controls in a FPS.
@(Unverified)
Too bad nobody can take advantage of it. Every FPS I've played sucked. Granted, I quit looking about a year ago.
My Wii = dust collector.
@Everyone in this thread
SERIOUSLY?!?!
"the FBI should look into this, they could be printing their own money...."
I don't believe that humans read these words, and gave them SERIOUS CONSIDERATION. Reading engadget comments always leaves me with the feeling that Ashton Kutcher is controlling the tubes and masterfully trolling every literate techgeek.
Cheese, please.
@Hung
joke -- something said or done to provoke laughter
Not giving the Wii ANY HD capability at all was incredibly short sighted (especially when you consider even the PS2 has some very limited HD ability), yeah alot of people like the Wii, but I think almost all of them would like it better if there was an HD version.
The only other thing that I really think Nintendo messed up was their terrible online gaming system.
@Amnesia87
Yea because Mario and Yoshi need to be HD, thats like saying I bought my 1080p TV and HD PVR to watch cartoons in HD. Why can't people just take the Wii for what it it. It has never been advertised as an amazing graphics machine, it plays games that everyone loves and that your mom loves too.
If you gonna QQ about graphics open your wallet and buy a Xbox or PS3.
@Work Play Party Two things, I'm not saying they needed to even nessicarily make the system any more powerful (though it would have been nice) but they should have at least allowed the option of outputting at higher resolutions, and let the developers decide.
Most PS3/X360 games don't run at 1080p (most don't even run at 720p if I recall) but it's nice to have the option, then you get simple games like Wipeout HD (ps3) which run 1080p60 and look effing amazing. If a developer has the ability to code a game to run on Wii hardware and output it at 720p, why not let em do it? (it would also be really nice to at least have the menus in higher resolution, blurry menus are no fun)
2nd, CARTOONS LOOK AMAZING IN HD... All the VERY best reference quality blu-ray are animated movies. Anime looks great too. Believe it or not, HD is more than just more pixels, it's also a vastly improved color gamut. You don't need to make a game like Uncharted 2 to take advantage of HD.
@Amnesia87
I doubt you would being saying it would be nice to give to developers the option to output at whatever resolution they wanted if that bumped the price of the console up by $100-200 dollars.
Hardware upgrades don't come for free and the Wii would definitely need some to achieve this. Nintendo decided to go the affordable route with the Wii right out of the gates, unlike PS3 and 360 which started at very high price points. This in turn has made the Wii the best selling console of this generation.
@Amnesia87
With the sales numbers for the Wii being that high, that has to cover the general public which I doubt knows the difference between composite, component, HDMI, Bluetooth, 480i, 480p, 720p, 180i,1080p, yadayadayada.
FYI, all PS3 and X360 games are required to support at least 720p. The Wii supports 480i (which is what everyone on CRT TVs have been using since forever), with 480p known as "progressive scan". Then you have the 576 equivalent for the PAL Euro regions.
"Standard def" DVD's plat at 480p, with most HD players upscaling/downscaling/whatever.
There is no way the majority of the millions of Wii owners out there knows or even gives a rat's ass about all of the above I just described. All they care about is sticking in a game disc and swinging their Wii Remotes at each other at parties or family gatherings. That's what Nintendo was banking on, and they were right.
If Nintendo caved in to everyone's whining, and said "hey, now on HD!", you know what the Wii owners are gonna ask? They are going to ask, "What is that? Does this mean I can't swing my controller around anymore?"