Four Screens Media

Variety is reporting that Wii is in talks to start a video streaming service, according to an interview with Curt Mavis, persident of digital media for Lionsgate.   According to Mr. Mavis

The thing that is clearly a force in digital are the game devices. I think when we see the Wii come into the market with the ability to stream movies, which I think is maybe going to happen as soon as this year, I think that’s going to be a big marketplace for digital distribution.

This comes on the heals Wii announcing a video service in Japan, of Sony reporting strong video sales for the PS3 ($180 million according to this article), XBox reporting strong streaming viewers for the Netflix service (1 million activations reported here), and increased reports of people looking for more video on demand services.

Given the Wii’s simple to use design, it’s possible it could be a breakout device for video downloads as well as people that find other devices and services complex, find the Wii’s potential service simple.  However, success or failure, future hype around a Wii video service increase discussion around cable vs. direct to TV video delivery.

(Also reported by Greg Sandoval of News.com here.)