Don’t get excited Wii U owners, streaming service HBO NOW is not coming to the console, no matter what its ads might have led you to believe.
Consoles are so much more than just something to play games on in the present day. They have become media centers used for streaming movies, listening to music, and surfing the web - well, most of them have. For some reason, Nintendo still appears to be dead set against its owners from using its consoles for anything but playing games.
Hopefully, that trend will soon change when it comes to the Switch. Then again, Nintendo’s newest offering is selling well enough for it to be left exactly as it is. If Nintendo was ever going to cave to pressure and allow streaming services onto its platform, you’d have assumed it would have happened on the Wii U.
Despite the console being pretty much left in the past, its owners were given a glimmer of hope recently. Game Rant reported that an ad for streaming service HBO NOW implied that it was coming to the Wii U. The banner featured all the ways its patrons could stream the service, and to represent that it can be downloaded on (s0me) consoles, HBO used a picture of a Wii U controller.
Herein lies the problem. HBO NOW cannot be streamed on Wii U, but it can be streamed on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. So, why not use an icon for one of those two? Gamers have hypothesized that it might have been to avoid arguments between fans of the two consoles. Others have joked that the HBO employee in charge of putting together the ad is a Wii U die-hard who refuses to let the console go down as Nintendo’s worst ever.
In reality, it was likely just an oversight by HBO - a pretty lazy one, though, in all fairness. You would assume that those in charge of such a task would know on which platforms the service it works for can be streamed. We think HBO should bring HBO NOW to the Wii U as an apology for getting everyone’s hopes up. Don’t hold your breath on that one.
