Nintendo Adding Video To Wii: No Threat Yet To Apple, Cable, Netflix
Some of the companies best positioned to connect your living room to the Internet are those that already have a box hooked up to your TV -- like the gaming industry. So it's no surprise that Nintendo (NTDOY) is teaming up with Japan's largest ad agency to add video to its Wii videogame consoles.
This makes sense: The Wii is already wildly popular, and its main rivals both offer video -- Microsoft (MSFT) via its own digital distribution platform and Netflix (NFLX) movie streaming, and Sony (SNE) via its own digital distribution platform and Blu-ray movies.
So what will Nintendo's video service offer? Nothing that will threaten the cable industry or new entrants like Apple (AAPL) yet: No popular, existing stuff like Hulu shows, but instead, new programs created specially for the service, such as cartoons. (The service will launch in Japan next year; Reuters says the timing for overseas rollout is still unknown.)
