Photo Channel... update?

Nov. 13 3:44 PM by Lynxara

Do you use Nintendo's Photo Channel frequently? Nah, neither do I. Still, there's something interesting to spot if you go check out the Photo Channel page of Nintendo's site. Scroll down to the bottom....

... yeah, that's right, Nintendo's outright removing MP3 support from the Photo Channel with the December update. The update looks like it will voluntary for those of us who have our machines already, but if you pick up a Wii after December 2007, it won't play MP3s anymore.

Adding AAC support to the Photo Channel is a great thing, but why remove MP3 support? Well, only Nintendo knows for sure, but here's our editorial thinking on the matter.

What's the primary source of AAC files online? Apple's iTunes store, which distributes purchased music in this format. If you're encoding your music into AAC, you probably did it via iTunes so all of your collection would be in the same format.

Now, what's the main source of MP3s on the internet? Well... internet piracy. Yeah, sure, there are plenty of outlets like eMusic that sell MP3s, and plenty of people encoding their own CDs to that format, but the perception is frequently that MP3 = stolen downloads.

Right now, Nintendo's having huge problems with software piracy in Korea. Historically, Nintendo has always made preventing software (and hardware) piracy one of their primary goals in both system and media design.

(For example, try popping a Wii game into your computer's DVD drive, and it won't be able to recognize that the disc is even there or even a DVD. This certainly won't happen with PS2 and 360 games, which are easily ripped to .isos and then distributed for illegal download online.)

If someone at Nintendo is thinking that MP3 = piracy and AAC = legal... well, there you go. Nintendo wants you using AACs, and only AACs, and audio quality could be little more than an excuse for the changeover. They've got a corporate image to maintain, after all.