Can TVii play local media?

[Bong Lover]

JazzB1987 said:

Bong Lover said:

JazzB1987 said:
cant you just plug your harddrive into your cable box or TV or whatever? Should work

Yes, I currently connect to my wireless NAS through the excellent Media Centre application XBMC, however if the WiiU could replace this set up I would have all my gaming and tv and movie watching moved to one single device. A concept that would delight me greatly.

Damn you were to fast  I figured my reply would make you think that  I ment without a WiIU  so I edited it ;)  I ment  if the WiiU can access your cable box  to change tv channels why would it not be able to access the harddrive?

I am assuming that the WiiU will be able to access the harddrive, multiple sources point to Nintendo encouraging people to connect extarnel storage devices to the WiiU. I do however wonder if the WiiU will be able to play media files of this harddrive. It is my understanding that just connecting a harddrive to a device is not enough to start playing video and audio files in various formats. There needs to be something, hard to pin down, but something that recognizes these files as delicious video clips and music stubs and then (probably by the use of Chi manipulation) presents these files on my television. It's this near magical middle component I am wondering about.