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European Wii U owners patiently looking forward to receiving Nintendo's TVii service are in for a disappointment.
Nintendo released the TVii service in the US and Japan back in December 2012, shortly after the launch of the Wii U. Shortly after, in January 2013, it revealed that it would be bringing the service to the European region "as soon as possible."
Now, some two years later, the company has revealed that it is scrapping such expansion plans.
The company announced the cancellation over on the official Nintendo Europe website. Apparently, this is "due to the extremely complex nature of localising multiple television services across a diverse range of countries with varied licensing systems."
Nintendo's TVii is a free service that enables Japanese and American users to browse TV content from Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and cable TV on their Wii U pads. It's then possible to watch this content on TV or on the Wii U pad itself.
Users can get information on the TV content they're watching on the Wii U pad, which is taken from various online sources such as Wikipedia and IMDb. It's also possible to comment on this TV content through Miiverse or social networks.
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Given the potential usefulness of this TVii feature, Nintendo's attempt at softening the blow for Europeans may come as a bit of a slap in the face. The company has announced that it is launching the Nintendo Anime Channel, a new video on demand channel for Nintendo 3DS.
On it, users can stream anime content from series such as Pokémon, Kirby, and Inazuma Eleven. Apparently, new content for this free app download will be added regularly.
Quite how this is supposed to benefit Wii U users hoping for an integrated TV service, we're not sure.
