Wii U’s TVii Won’t Arrive Till December
The Wii U arrives tomorrow, November 18th, and I’m sure many of you are getting one. It looks to be a fun system and I like the direction Nintendo is taking with it, although I’m unsure how mainstream audiences will react to it. One of the biggest selling points for casual audiences (and perhaps gamers too) is using the Wii U Gamepad as, essentially, the best and biggest universal remote ever. You’ll be able to control your TV via the pad, including input switching and all the basic features. Combined with TVii, Nintendo’s app that will unify many streaming services (like you cable, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Video) it could do wonders for streamlining the living room experience. But bad news: it won’t arrive until December.
While a day-one patch will enable all the Wii U’s other online features, TVii will be the most notable one missing. Nintendo has confirmed it will arrive in December, which is mildly disappointing for me. However, I’m glad to see that Nintendo is at least learning to use these wonderful things called patches to add features to their systems and games. I think this feature would be best to highlight right when you start the system up the first time, much like the TV remote and account creation features, but I suppose we’ll have to wait till Christmas rolls around to see how it will all end up working!