Reggie tells us why the Nintendo DSi doesn't have mp3 support


Recommended Posts

Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime has said that the reason the Nintendo DSi supports the AAC music format instead of MP3 is so that "you can control the speed of the playback". This is apparently the only reason.
VB: If you were going after Apple, I would have expected you to add MP3 music playback to the DSi (which only uses the AAC music format).

RF-A: We?re going for a sound experience where you can control the speed of the playback. That?s why we used that.

Full Q&A: http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/06/qa-with-...ry-competition/

Pretty damn stupid not supporting :/3 :/

aka we didn't want to pay the licensing fee so we'll make up an excuse that sounds better

Wouldn't they need to pay a licensing fee for AAC as well? :/

That's weird, Windows Media Player has been letting my MP3s play faster for years :p Nintendo should have kept their mouth shut on this one. We all know it's Nintendo being tight fisted with their cash, which is ridiculous. Oh well, when the DSi gets hacked and I can run my own apps on it, I'm sure some fellow will make an MP3 player (or most likely, the apps already available for DS will be compatible).

aka we didn't want to pay the licensing fee so we'll make up an excuse that sounds better

+1

The very same reason why they didn't consider DVD playback because of licensing fees.

Nintendo really are cheap arses (N)

Two things I take from this:

(Y) AAC is much better than MP3, allowing high quality audio at low bitrates.

(N) DRM

I don't see how DRM is an issue when Nintendo isn't selling these things, only letting you playback any AAC file you like? :unsure:

Moonshell to be ported?

I really hope current flashcards work on the DSi, I've been playing a lot of homebrew recently and it'd be a shame to have to wait for the DSi to get hacked in order to run homebrew. I also hope we don't run into this "Custom Firmware" nonsense the PSP is dealing with at the moment. I'm hoping it's a solution like the Wii's HBC channel, or the current method of using flashcards.

I don't see how DRM is an issue when Nintendo isn't selling these things, only letting you playback any AAC file you like? :unsure:

Come on, don't be so shortsighted, they're obviously creating a business opportunity here.

Wii Music Store, download to DSi, listen on the go... see where this is going?

Wow, I can't believe users won't be able to play MP3s :| Homebrew doesn't reach the masses :(

VB: You brought up our article on the Xbox 360 defects. How has Nintendo managed to escape the defect problem that Microsoft ran into?

RF-AKE: We stuck with last-gen technology so we could escape defect problems and higher hardware costs.

Sorry should have been clearer. There is a one off fee per decoder but no fee for distribution of AAC.

With MP3 there is a fee for decoder and distribution.

Coolio, but I dont see how that differs from getting an mp3 decoder license unless nintendo plans to distribute the music themselves, but in that case I think that the fee is paid entirely by the copyright holder.

Anyway, yeah, AAC is better but almost everything is in mp3.

Come on, don't be so shortsighted, they're obviously creating a business opportunity here.

Wii Music Store, download to DSi, listen on the go... see where this is going?

Perhaps in the future, but that's a territory Nintendo isn't really used to, and one already dominated by Apple, MS and Sony. I could perhaps see them oferring some sort of Video Game Music Service, though, where you can download game OSTs for a small fee. That's a market unexplored that Nintendo could go for.

I've never used my DS for music anyway. My phone, and my iPod (obviously) are much betted suited to the job. So as crap as I think this is (and I think it's very crap) It won't affect me.

How many of you use your DS for music?

The AAC decoder costs less than the MP3 decoder (licensing wise), and AAC is much better than MP3 so there's no real reason to spend more for lower quality.

No real reason?

How about MP3 being the most popular format for audio.

What is everyone with an MP3 collection suppose to do?

Transcode all their audio to get it to work on their DS? No thanks (N)

Cheap cheap move, even most cheap ?30 DVD players support MP3 nowadays.

It's the element about making consumers happy with popular formats that counts here, instead of restricting or forcing people to change to other formats. They ditched DVD playback in the Wii as well, citing what? We want to save money and offer you a cheap product? Uhh last time I checked the DVD playing 360 Arcade is like ?99.

It's easy to transcode MP3 to AAC.

Nintendo had a few options, pay for MP3 and take the hit, pay for MP3 and raise the cost of the product, or use a better codec that's cheaper.

Uhh you do realise that going from a compressed format to another compressed format degrades quality? I'm no audiophile as such (although I do strive for decently encoded music), however you won't catch me transcoding my music library and losing quality.

The key drawback of transcoding is decreased quality.

Compression artifacts are cumulative; therefore transcoding between lossy codecs causes a progressive loss of quality with each successive generation (this is known as digital generation loss). For this reason, it is generally discouraged unless unavoidable. For instance, if an individual owns a digital audio player that does not support a particular format (e.g., Apple iPod and Ogg Vorbis), then the only way for the owner to use content encoded in that format is to transcode it to a supported format.

Pay for MP3 and take a hit, I don't see why when others make it normal procedure to support the most common formats, Nintendo need to bail out.

Especially coupled with the amount of $$$ they're making on Wii/DS hardware.

They ain't a charity, they're a business, but for the consumer there has to be a line drawn somewhere on skimping out on pretty "normal" features/support.

Cheap cheap move, even most cheap ?30 DVD players support MP3 nowadays.

It's the element about making consumers happy with popular formats that counts here, instead of restricting or forcing people to change to other formats. They ditched DVD playback in the Wii as well, citing what? We want to save money and offer you a cheap product? Uhh last time I checked the DVD playing 360 Arcade is like ?99.

I agree that Nintendo are overzealous with their profit margins. That's why they keep leaving stuff like DVD and MP3 out. However Nintendo have made money on the Wii since day one.

Would they have sold any more units is they had included DVD in the Wii? I doubt it, so they didn't bother. It might have been nice but I can live without it.

Also I don't believe that Microsoft make a profit, per unit, on the ?99 360.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I and many others did not vote to get out of the E.u because of Putin or Farage, we did so for our own reasons. You don't have to tel me what my own did or did not do when it comes to the E.U. The EEC is or was the European Economic Community, a different beast to what the E.U is now.The EEC was a mainly about trading, the E.U have gone far beyond that and as I have said before, is now more of a United States of Europe. The U.K did not vote to join a United States of Europe. Anyway, they did not want us in there in the first place, Charles de Gaulle stopped us joining as he claimed we didn’t agree with the core ideas of integration. He was not wrong and that is why we voted out of the E.U when the time came. I was not old enough to vote the first time. My only regret is that we did not have the referendum years ago and got out years ago. If we rejoined, we would have to agree to join the Euro and no doubt Schengen, agree with freedom of movement, we have enough problem with people coming over here as it is. i have no problem with people coming over here if they work and don't try to push their way of life onto us. The E.U has a currency, freedom of movement, an anthem a flag, a parliament, well they are there, not sure if they do anything. Don't sound like something that is just for trading. Oh yeah, also wanted a euro Army. How many stupid rules have the E.U made that we had to follow? I doubt I will see the Uk rejoin the E.U, which suits me. Oh yeah, my partner is Polish, she came over here before Poland joined the E.U and she got fed up of people just coming over here with ease, while she had to struggle. She is now a British citizen and have been for a fair few years
    • Hello, Paul. Thanks for the editorial. It was interesting. I'm going research more into the app and its concept. Of course, if you know me at all, you know that I'd say your articles needs some editing! I a;ways do, don't I? For instance, the article occasionally mentions a concept before defining it, e.g., relays.
    • Screamer is 50% off on Steam, making it £24.99 here in the UK: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2814990/Screamer/ You might remember the series from the mid 90s / early 2000s, this new game is also by Milestone who created the older games.
    • U.S. partially reverses Anthropic AI ban for Mythos but keeps Fable 5 off the market by Karthik Mudaliar Anthropic says that the U.S. government has finally allowed it to restore Claude Mythos 5. But of course, there's a catch. The rollout is again for a limited set of U.S. organizations that operate and defend critical infrastructure. The company announced this in a post on X (formerly Twitter). This does not mean that Anthropic's latest frontier models are back to normal availability. Fable 5, which was a tuned version of Mythos 5 for public release, remains unavailable. Anthropic said that it is still working with the government to expand Mythos 5 access and make Fable 5 available again, but there's no timeline. Reports from Bloomberg and Reuters say that this decision actually came through a letter from the U.S. Commerce Department. According to Reuters, this would allow more than 100 companies and institutions access to Mythos 5. Reuters also reported that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s letter removes the need for export licenses for approved companies’ non-US citizen employees, as well as Anthropic’s own non-US citizen employees, while restrictions remain for organizations outside the approved list. Anthropic isn't alone with this kind of controlled rollout. OpenAI's newest model family, GPT 5.6, was announced just yesterday, but isn't available for everyone yet. In its announcement, OpenAI also said that access to these models is initially limited to a select group of trusted partners and organizations, with broader access planned later this year. Both of these cases show that frontier AI launches are no longer just ordinary product releases and more like slow and vetted deployments shaped heavily by the U.S. government.
    • Sol, Terra, Luna - aren't those the names of failed crypto coins? 🤣🤣🤣
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      226
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      154
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!