The Wii will get its own video distribution service next year, according to Japan's Nikkei business daily newspaper. It will take a different approach than the ones Sony and Microsoft pursued on their respective consoles.
Instead of offering existing movies and television programming, as seen in Sony's video on demand service and Microsoft's Xbox Live Video Marketplace, Nintendo plans to offer cartoons and "mainly family-oriented programming" options created especially for the Wii video service.
Nintendo will partner with Japanese ad agency Dentsu for the endeavor, offering some videos for a fee, others supported by advertising.
According to the Nikkei, the service will be launched in Japan in the Spring with the program expanding worldwide "later."
Sounds... interesting. We're guessing it doesn't increase the odds of Nintendo delivering on its promise to release a Wii with DVD playback. But at least you probably won't want for Pokemon cartoons in 2009.
Nintendo, Dentsu To Team Up On Programming For Wii [Nikkei (subscription req'd) via Washington Post]