Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has confirmed, “Wii U does not have DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities. The reason for that is that we feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn’t warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies.”
Which, of course, is a blatant lie. What Nintendo wants is a proprietary format it can charge developers for. Most people would prefer to be able to not have to switch from a DVD/Blu-Ray player to a console to play games. If Nintendo were trying to cater to the “hardcore” this time around, they’re getting off to a bad start.