Topic: Playing movies on an External Hard-Drive, Is it possible.

Hello, I was wondering if it is possible to put a movie on an external HDD and play it through the Wii U. Seeing as it dosent have a DVD capabilities ?

The WiiU will format the HDD once it's connected, that means it'll wipe all of the content (if there is any) on the HDD and will only work on the WiiU (unless you reformat it at a later date).

So you won't be able to play or view pictures/videos/music through a HDD on the WiiU.

Yeah, I don't see that functionality exists yet. Even if you got the videos on a HDD or SD card there's no video player.

Yeah, it won't work in that way because of the reasons people mentioned. The easiest way to play media on the Wii U would be to get a media server running on a different machine and point the Wii U browser to it.

. Since the wii u will force a format on the drive upon hooking it up it won't be possible to do that. As anything on that hard drive will be erased

Well, I just learned a major fact.

If I partition my drive, which partition will it ask to format?

:- well this sucks .. so much for a console made in 2012, feels like 1999 all over again ..

It will ask for no format, because it will take over the partition table, and attempt to use the entire drive for itself. If you were to attempt to partition the drive after the Wii U formats it to its own specifications (to split it), and try to connect it to the Wii U, the Wii U will request it be formatted again so it can take total control.

cant blame them, just like what sony does with hard drives, they don't want to do anything that would help piracy. this way it ensures the content youpurchase stays with you