Nintendo promised a lot of things when it first unveiled TVii, all of which painted the service as a way to turn the Wii U into a entertainment and social hub for the living room, similar to what Microsoft promised with the Xbox One. In reality, the service was… well… not very good, especially when compared to the functionality and smoothness of the Xbox One’s similar features. That’s why Nintendo has decided to shut down TVii next month.
After nearly three years of letting Wii U owners in North America and Japan awkwardly interact with cable and streaming video services via their game pads, Nintendo TVii is officially going off the air on August 11. Everyone try to stay calm. One of the Wii U console’s most promising pre-launch features, Nintendo TVii promised to turn television watching into a robust social experience, tracking user’s favorite shows, making suggestions based on familial preferences, integrating with all of the major streaming video services, programming DVR recordings and acting as a second screen experience on the Wii U game pad. It sounded pretty amazing. It wasn’t really. It was awkward and fumbling and a year later the Xbox One came along with its HDMI pass-through and voice-controlled TV watching and made Nintendo TVii look silly. So yeah, six months after Nintendo of Europe gave up trying to get TVii working in its territory altogether, the service is shutting down completely. The news arrived, as most important news does, via Miiverse.
