Japanese Wii owner have received "Minna no Theater Wii" (Everybody's Theater on Wii), At the moment the channel is only showing off what movies you can see, as of tomorrow you'll be able to watch Mission Impossible 1-3.
IGNUS wrote:
While Sony and Microsoft both have movie download services here in America, over in Japan, the three hardware makers have yet to get anything similar started. Until now, that is. Fuji Soft announced today that it will kick off a movie download service tomorrow (June 17) for the Wii.
The Fuji Soft service is actually just a section of its current "Minna no Theater Wii" (Everyone's Theater Wii) video viewing service. Available since January, the service has offered digital rentals of mostly anime episodes.
Tomorrow, the service's movie section will take its first feature length movies. Fuji Soft has signed a deal with Cinema Now to bring major Hollywood productions to the service. Thirty-four Western movies will be available initially, including such offerings as Mission Impossible, Eagle Eye and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Fuji Soft plans to continually add to the lineup.
The movie channel will also see Japanese and Korean films. Fuji Soft says that a total of 250 titles are due to be made available gradually.
Despite the new feature-length offerings, the rental process appears to be unchanged. To use Minna no Theater Wii, Wii owners must download a 500 WiiPoint viewing app, which takes the form of a WiiWare title. This is used to browse the growing catalog of titles and stream video footage at DVD quality. Video viewing fees start at 300 WiiPoints for a two day viewing period.
Do you think you'd make use of something like this on Wii if someone brought out an American version? Let us know in the comments section. And be sure and state how much you'd be willing to pay for a rental.
300 points for each movie at DVD quality... sounds cheaper than watching movies on the 360...
EDIT: Ah I didn't see that you have to pay for the rental App... now it's sounds like it's cheaper just to do it on the 360, unless you're going to watch a lot of movies on it.
Thing is, this App, even though Nintendo made it, Fuji Films support it. Problem being is that Fuji Films rarely release movies in the US, but they are involved in getting American/Hollywood movies in Japan. It would be very hard to release this in the US/Europe, unless Netflix gets a partnership with Nintendo of America and create their own App that does roughly the same thing.
I know that, I'm just tired of Japan getting all that stuff and we're left with nothing. Things are much better now than they used to be but there's still the small areas like this.
Well think of this way, we might like only two or three at the most of those channels we are missing out:
TV Guide Channel
Picture Shop Channel (Buy Photo stuff for your ... photos)
Fortune Telling Channel (looks like the Everybody Votes)
The TV/Movie Channel (Discussion topic)
The Delivery Service Channel (Buy food!)
When it comes to this; we are still waiting for what Netflix might be planning for the Wii. I heard they were going to do some disc thing, but that was a long while ago and it could of been a rumor for all I can say.
Wii no Ma probably is coming elsewhere, but having had a look I can only say that the video streaming is better than Nintendo Channel (it seems to buffer the whole show before playing) and the content isn't anything you'll be missing.
Minna no Theatre Wii I would like to see elsewhere; if it has recent film releases it would be worth it, though paying for the player seems a bit lame unless that includes a couple of films.
I think the photo book ordering aspect is coming elsewhere; the food delivery thing is no better than any other food delivery service (which isn't saying much in my opinion -- better to just order direct!); the fortune channel is as big a waste of time as the Mii Contest/Check Mii Out Channel.
Really not a lot to be jealous of, but I would welcome this service as an alternative to watching movies on Freeview.
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Topic: Film rental service avaible in Japan
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