Over in the land of the rising sun, Nintendo are all set to team up with Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) to deliver broadband Internet access and support for their Wii console in Japan. Wii units come loaded with a configured version of the Opera browser, which allows users to surf the net on the telly, and Wii owners are able to download old NES ‘classics’ such as the original Zelda and Castlevania (we’ve got our fingers crossed for GoldenEye).
New NTT broadband subscribers will be able to take advantage of discounts on subscription packages if they’re going to go online through the Wii, much like the free Myspace/Facebook deal that Apple and O2 secured for the iPhone.
The deal was announced in preparation for the upcoming WiiWare (to be known as Wii Software over here) platform, which will allow gamers to download new titles written specifically for the Wii and save them to the machine’s hard drive.
NTT is the Japanese equivalent of BT – it is the market leader in the Japanese telecoms market, and it began life as a government-owned institution before 1985 when it was partially privatised.
“I hope our fibre-optic service becomes as popular as the Wii,” said Tetsuo Koga NTT East Senior Executive Vice President told a news conference yesterday. “I think we have won a powerful ally to hit our target to boost fibre-optic subscribers to 20 million by the year ending March 2011.”
Downloading old 8 and 16-Bit hits like Bomberman isn’t exactly a problem over a phoneline – however, downloading seventh generation Wii titles over a crumbling copperwire connection might be. NTT have, presumably with some government incentive, unrolled fibre-optic networks all across Japan.
Nintendo might be hard pressed to launch a similar service in the UK due to the technical limitations of copper, so wii may well see a partnership between the Big N and Virgin Media in March, when Wii Software is due to go live in Europe.
The Wii is the biggest selling console of the current crop, outstripping sales of the considerably more highly-specced Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 platforms.
Similar Posts:
SpaceCadet said on 29 Nov 2007 at 12:29 pm #
The Wii is Megatron!
I don’t know what’s more fun watching the people playing jumping about like crazed fools or getting involved myself!…lol
Master Keith said on 29 Nov 2007 at 12:33 pm #
I don’t really know about not being able to download Wii games over a phoneline, pretty sure it’s possible…
might eat up a lot of bandwidth tho
The ideal solution would be if Nintendo could hook up with the main ISPs, and offer something like an unlimited usage policy on Wii downloads or something.
Of course, if you left your Wii downloading overnight, it wouldn’t be a problem. Might be a bit expensive on the old leccy bill, and that methods not exactly environmentally friendly either!!!
-MK
Dan said on 29 Nov 2007 at 2:32 pm #
I’ve tried the web browser (opera) on the Wii. I found it pretty good, but it would need a keyboard for it to useful for everybody.
Also when the Wii accesses the internet, it seems a little slow. This maybe due to my wireless setup. I may try picking up a LAN adapter to see if that speeds things up.
Master Keith said on 03 Dec 2007 at 10:59 am #
True, if my Wii got hacked by someoone I wouldn’t be best pleased. I don’t kno if it’s possible to hack into one and steal Wii Points, or even if Nintendo have any kid of security measures in place??
-MK
sherlock said on 03 Dec 2007 at 11:02 am #
NTT ISN’T the BT equivalent of Japan, as they’ve had the foresight and good business sense to set up a fibre optic network!!!!!!
andy easton said on 07 Dec 2007 at 10:25 am #
Anyone else here got Super Mario Galaxy?
Dan said on 14 Dec 2007 at 9:50 am #
I got Super Mario Galaxy a couple of weeks ago.
I like it and the idea of having player 2 helping Mario is great