Topic: can you play normal dvds on a wii u

I don't mind how Nintendo does stuff. I have a PS3, and there's lots of ways to watch videos, even without bluray/DVD.

It's the same way about 5.1 PCM surround sound. I have a receiver that supports it, and it sounds better than compressed formats like Dolby or DTS. They have "lossless" versions of those codecs, but PCM ultimately rules it all, unless you're receiver is 3 or more years old(most likely).
EDIT: I brought this up, because it's a complaint that I would consider in the same area.

Like @skywake said, there's basically no way to complain, because everyone has a DVD/bluray player already, and lots of discs to play on it(you don't have DVDs/blurays without a playback machine). The Wii U isn't marketed as a DVD or bluray player, so no one should be expecting it to be that. It has its own native disc fornat, for games.

You can't expect Nintendo to have DVD/bluray playback, just because Microsoft and Sony do. They already have connections in that area of business. Nintendo doesn't have connections in that area of business, besides their own proprietary format(Panasonic, which owns part of bluray).

@Skywake What if you want Wii U to support Blu-Ray so you can start a collection? If you don't have Playstation it's entirely possible. DVDs? Good chance you already have a player for that, but Blu-Rays? Quite possible you don't. I know when I move out and start things up on my own, my Playstations will be serving as Blu-Ray (and DVD) players. Also, someone starting out in life might have enough money for a Wii U, but not a Blu-Ray player in addition. I personally don't care, but I can see why others would.

There hasn't been any movies in the last decade worth dropping coin on anyway

The more pointless crap that's added on to the Wii U, the more expensive...

So Nintendo sticks a good £100 + tablet onto the console, wanting to keep the console cost effective.

Yeah, I'm probably over-reacting a bit here. I just think its kinda ridiculous that people are making this complaint now when Blu-Ray players are pretty damn cheap compared to other necessary components. If you own a Wii U you've already spent at least $350AU and you probably spent another $150AU getting a few games for it. Odds are that you then also got extra controllers for it whether it be Wii Mote or Pro Controller for another $65-70AU. Then you want to build up a collection of Blu-Rays at $20AU a pop.

.... and an $80AU Blu-Ray player is an extravagance? Seriously if people want it and they're already into tech enough to have a Wii U they should learn to budget. I would have had sympathy back when Blu-Ray players did cost more than the console did, back when the Wii launched for example. When the $600AU PS3 seemed like an ok deal because Blu-Ray players were a good $500+. Now? Absolutely none.

If you want to playback Blu-Ray disks buy a Blu-Ray player. It could do it but it doesn't do it so quit complaining and get over it. They're not that pricey anymore.

Disks for media especially movies died a long time ago.

Yes Blu-Ray & Music CD's died off that long ago that most places have forgot that there are still selling them, and the next Blu-Ray format which is coming out 2015/16 died off how long ago? and what year are we in again 2020.

Three things prove you wrong:

• Quentin Tarantino
• Christopher Nolan
• Pixar

Aside from better picture quality, sound quality, special features and commentary tracks, bluray disks have no advantage over Netflix.

Totally agree. I still buy Blu rays for those reasons alone especially on movies that I like (any of the Marvel movies for example). The only time I watch a movie on Netflix is if I am on the fence with that particular title and don't want to spend the $20+ bucks on a blu ray and end up with a bad movie, seen the movie and don't own it yet (like Captain America) or am just to lazy to get up and pull out my copy of the movie.

I will add though that if I saw a movie on Netflix for the first time and really enjoy it I will pick it up on Blu ray for the extras especially if they have deleted scenes.

Also I tend to watch more TV shows on Netflix for most of the reasons above. The main reason though is I dont have all that money to shell out for season after season of a particular show and in the end that would cost me alot since they are alot of shows on my list.

This is the truth, no doubt. I honestly can't think of a single movie I really like that was released since 2003... There have been some BluRay re-releases though. Those are pretty shwiz.

Uh, what?

I was kidding mate. For me it's better to have one box that could play everything and that's all. I prefer WiiU instead of XBO or PS4 and the reason is: games. Although is right everyone that buy a WiiU can afford a BR player, I think Nintendo should catch with the times and see that its rivals offer this option since the year 2000. And if this is a game-machine, why are they offering TVii?

I agree with MAB.... Only titles I might consider for Blue Ray would be Lord of the Rings.....Can't think of much else that I'd like to be honest- not that I'd need a physical copy for and that it would really matter to see in Blu Ray resolution.....

Digital format only works as good or better then hard format when that digital format is downloaded to a disk drive. This is the case for digital downloads of video games. It gives you faster load times and better rendering. With movies, while streaming, the latency that comes with it can cause an issue with picture quality. If the buffering is bad then the picture quality suffers. If the ping is to high the picture quality suffers. Internet streaming is not up to standards with hard formats like blue ray and dvds. With that said, Nintendo has been and will always be a "gaming first" console. They know that that majority of the people have some type of media player already. This Media player is more then likely already plugged into your TV so the complaint about extra wires is irrelevant. If your buying a gaming system like the Wii U then your already going to be adding more lines to your TV regardless. The one thing I don't understand though is why Nintendo wouldn't allow music CD playback. They gave us the option for movie media with netflix and hulu and amazon but no ablility for music like pandora or slacker even. Thats my only complaint. Though a small complaint because like with my movies, I have other ways to play my music which is perfectly fine with me.

To be fair though the quality of Apple's movies is decent enough, it's just the DRM that makes it a bad option. You can get around it but it's about as much of a hastle as ripping a movie anyways so what's the point? You just want to get the movie and play it without having to jump through hoops. Anyways their movies hover just under 10Mbps for 1080p and if you stream that over a network then you get the same quality as long as your bandwidth hovers above around 10Mbps. Which in itself says something when Netflix says it requires only 1.5Mbps and only uses 3.8Mbps max. If I can I watch youtube videos that basically max out my 9Mbps connection then 3.8Mbps is hardly "HD". Then they have just announced 4K which is running at 15Mbps. Hey, that's better compression but if it was actually 4K it would be chewing up something closer to 40Mbps.

Until someone offers a decently priced service that runs 1080p content at 10Mbps and 4K content at 40Mbps and there's the infrastructure here to run at those speeds. Or if someone starts selling movies at the same quality as Apple or better but without the DRM and at a price that's at or below retail. While neither of those things are true disks will remain my media of choice.

All I know is that I lived outside the U.S., and where I come from, if someone bought a CD (there are no stores selling them anymore, all closed) or if someone bought a DVD (again, hard time doing that without Amazon) people would think he was insane. They did not even hear of bluray. Now, this is a relatively western country, and yes, everybody pirate, so it's different cultures to U.S, and I guess Australia, and perhaps other places in Europe too. The world is a big place.

I think the reason for the prediction that physical media will die is that the mass people do not care about the differences in quality, or commentary or buying things for collection. They will buy just 1 song out of the CD and pay 99 cents. That's why there is a difference in revenue. Very niche people buy lots of movies, and know what resolution it is and what is going on with it. Most don't care. So the revenues comparison is probably off. You should check the number of users on netflix and the number of people buying physical. If the trend is obvious, the digital side will crush that minority. There are stores selling vinyl records, so it will always exist, but not on a wide commercial level.

If you applied that logic to gaming you'd come to the conclusion that big AAA titles were dead. Because despite things like CoD and Mario taking the majority of the revenue there are a lot more people playing Candy Crush, Angry Birds and Scrabble. This is of course ridiculous. The market for casual consumers is important and will always exist but companies and artist will always cater for the market with the most revenue potential. Why would you stop producing content for a medium that has a large chunk or even the vast majority of the revenue?

The fact is with movies and music on disks I can do with it what I want. If down the road I decide I want to have all of my music in FLAC rather than 320kbps MP3 then I can rip my collection again. If I had downloaded it off iTunes I'd be stuck with the 256kbps AAC if I didn't want to drop the quality. At least now their music isn't locked to iPods. Their movies still are however. What if I want to play it on something else? Netflix, cool. What if I want to take it on holiday with me, play it on a plane or play it in the backseat of a car? While those issues remain unsolved I don't see physical media dying anytime soon. With games those problems do not exist. That's the difference.

oh and FYI some of the movies I've gotten on Blu-Ray recently have done something pretty interesting. They've had the Blu-Ray and then they've thrown in a DVD also for backwards compatibility. That's nice, DVDs play on more stuffs and are easier to rip. Then some go further and also give you a code that you can throw into iTunes and download a copy. Even more recently it has been for the 1080p version. So why would I not get the disk version when that's sometimes happening?

Wow... You really have no clue.

The only way they can strip your purchases from you, is if you do something illegal with your purchases, like pirating. You have bigger things to worry about, if they strip your console of the downloaded content you bought., assuming you crossed the line where it is allowed, by law.

They can not, will not, and are not allowed to take your purchases, unless you did something illegal in the first place.

EDIT: In a worse case scenario, the business you bought digital goods from, doesn't exist anymore. You'd be restricted to what you currently have in your memory, on the device.

Again, this mentality to me sounds weird. I am talking about millions of people who would never buy anything, and have nothing to do with netflix, because there is no netflix in their country and they wouldn't pay for it even if they had. They download torrents, in whatever quality they want, and do with it whatever they like all night every night. There is nothing stuck - they have the best files on their harddrives, on their usb sticks, on their phones, on whatever format they want. That's reality. When you look in at the number of people going netflix, and it is a trend - and yes, it is a trend for gaming too, just slower, also take into the consideration the billions that are downloading for free, and you'd realize why the future for physical is dead.

So feel free to go against the conventional wisdom, like you said.
https://www.google.com/search?q=pirating+netflix+ruins+physic...

I am all for the physical to succeed. But the trend is on the decline and one day it will evaporate completely. I know it evaporated for me and for whole markets already.

Well, there was that controversy of Amazon pulling books that you already downloaded out of your device. But for the masses it doesn't matter. They pirate.

@dumedum
Valid point. When I had an iPad 2, one of my apps disappeared on the the app screen. It turns out that the app creator was using copyrighted material without permission.

However, that doesn't happen as long as the storefront pays attention. Google and Apple wouldn't have such trash on their stores, if there was some sort of quality control. The Pokemon and Mario ripoffs are Nintendo's problem, even though Google and Apple shouldn't be allowing that to happen.

Content that isn't allowed on app stores, shouldn'tbe available to begin with, and that's the main problem with people losing content. The consumer buys an app that they think is worth $5, but if the publisher is found out to be a fake and their content is taken down, they run off with your money.

Nintendo won't, and hasn't allowed that to happen.

EDIT: For the record, I ened up selling/partially trading my iPad for money/a giftcard, and bought a 3DS. All I was using my iPad for was gaming, so 3DS ended up being a better fit.