Wii Succesor and Future Will Use Physical Media

[jarrod]

Resident_Hazard said:

jarrod said:

Wii 2 will use Blu-ray media, won't play BD/DVD movies, and will still have Wii backwards compatibility, but not GameCube.   GC games will be added to the Virtual Console though (for $15 each).

I seriously doubt the bolded.  For one thing, the Wii and GameCube didn't even use DVD's.  It's a specialized disk developed in the same vein as DVD's, but not actual DVD's.  Nintendo didn't want to pay for the rights to use actual DVD technology.  Hence the "Nintendo Optical Disc," developed by Panasonic.  This is part of the reason that Nintendo never bothered with DVD playback in their machines (aside from that rare Panasonic-produced GameCube that played DVD's)--because their machines don't naturally read actual DVD technology and why Wii hackers have to, as I understand it, replace the laser to make the thing read DVD's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_optical_disc

Nintendo's harsh anti-piracy stance is why they have always been so ardent about having their own specific technology on their machines.

Also keep in mind that Nintendo has been working with a company called InPhase to develop Holographic Versatile Disc technology and readers for the technology.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InPhase_Technologies

Holographic Versatile Discs (HVD's) can reportedly hold somewhere between 500 gigabytes and two terabytes of data.  And Nintendo has been working on this thing for three-five years.

NOD *is* DVD, it's just a customized spec.  All consoles use a customized spec, only MS and Sony also include DVD movie spec (and paid for the license) while Nintendo doesn't, and they slapped a new name on their disc.  It's going to be the same story for Blu-ray in the next Nintendo console... it'll be Blu-ray in all but name (and ability to play movies).