As Wii U sales continue to dwindle, and hype continues to surge for competing products, it’s up to Nintendo to do whatever they can to save their next-gen console. A good place to start? Actually releasing all of the features they announced with the console.
Despite being a pretty good console, the Wii-U has faltered terribly. The launch day experience wasn’t great, features were missing, and it was never really clear to the average consumer that this was a whole new console. Somewhere along the way, Nintendo lost the magic wand that sent Wii consoles flying off store shelves at breakneck pace. Unfortunately, we’ve entered the time of year where Microsoft and Sony are starting their launch campaigns and Nintendo’s latest education poster shows that things are probably going to get worse before they get better.
If the Wii U is going to survive the year here in the US, there needs to be some forward momentum with the console in order to get the existing owners talking about the machine again. I can think of no better place to start than to actually deliver the finished software on the Wii U.
The US launch press event for the Wii U was designed, for obvious reasons, to showcase the absolute best of the new console. This wasn’t just about offering a hands on with the hardware, it was about making sure everyone in the building had one-on-one time with the entire Wii U experience. This meant time with each of the launch games, time with all of the different hardware types, and time with the actual console features.
Of those features, Nintendo TVii was by far the best kept secret. While the rest of the console manufacturers were busy trying to get all of the content stuffed into their consoles, Nintendo decided to set themselves up as the gatekeeper between you and all of your television. Acting as the smartest remote control you can own, and making it incredibly simple to flip between live TV and digital content, Nintendo TVii seemed like the perfect sleeper feature to make people want to have one in their living rooms.
Unfortunately, Nintendo TVii was not ready at launch. Weeks went by without a word regarding the impressive feature coming to the console, with only a note in the OS saying that it would be available in December. When the update finally came, Nintendo TVii was functional but still incomplete. The ability to control and play content from TiVo DVRs, including features that would make it so the Wii-U could schedule content on a TiVo, are still not active on the console today.
Without this feature, most of the Nintendo TVii features are useless to TiVo owners, which is one of the reasons the feature was such a big deal. To date, no third party had offered anything quite like this. Integration with TiVo, a feature that was demonstrated at the press event, was nowhere to be found. Nearly six months after first using the feature in a demo station, the Wii U remains completely oblivious to the fact that I own a TiVo Premiere XL.
Neither Nintendo nor TiVo were available to comment on the feature, and whether or not it was even still to be made available in the future. Since that announcement, TiVo has announced mini set top boxes that extend their service throughout the house, which offer features very similar to what was supposed to be available on the Wii U. Nintendo has since released their Google Street View app, which was announced after the console was launched, but Nintendo TVii has yet to be updated.
It’s possible that this feature is going to be part of a much larger update that Nintendo has planned for the future. Currently the Wii U only supports a single GamePad controller, but it was made clear that in the future it would be possible to use two at the same time. If the feature is still being worked on, there’s no knowing when it will be available.
[Update] Nintendo of America has responded to this post with an official statement. “We’re working hard with TiVo to integrate their services into Nintendo TVii. At this point, the integration work is still in progress. We do not yet have a launch date, but we will be sure to keep everyone posted.”
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