Believe it or not, Julian Eggebrecht is more than just the President of Factor 5. Eggebrecht is also the VP of Tech at Hulu. Recently, he made an appearance on IGN’s latest Nintendo Voice Chat episode, where he talked about both Factor 5 and Hulu. Most of his discussion involved the former, but he did have some interesting news to reveal on Hulu’s Switch app, which released just a few days ago. According to Eggebrecht, the reason why the Hulu app wasn’t available on the Switch at the time the console launched was largely due to decisions made by Nintendo. Here’s what he said about the matter, along with the IGN video Eggebrecht appeared in:
“Why not at launch? That was a political decision by Nintendo to a certain degree, but also a technical one because they really wanted to focus on the game-side of things on the one hand, and secondly really were only able to provide the basic technical functionality that you needed to make the greatest games on the new console. So one of the things which was missing until recently was one tiny little bit of encryption that most of the professional video services unfortunately need, and once that was unblocked for us, it was not a problem to get the whole thing going. We had the streaming actually and most of the tech we had done quite awhile ago.”
It’s good that at least it seems that it wasn’t to difficult to get what they needed to make it work out on Switch. With the right amount of material, these types of video services are great.
So it was mostly Nintendo’s fault it took this long. Okay! Got it!
Yup that was my assumption. There’s no reason why video streaming apps wouldn’t be on there unless nintendo didn’t want them on there yet.
There was a key word everyone’s missing here: encryption.
With the many hackers behind Nintendo, of course they wouldn’t take their chances in dropping their guard with the Switch.
From a business perspective, I think it may have actually been a good idea holding off the streaming apps for a while.
Definitely agree. It’s been obvious for a while now that Nintendo has everything concerning the Switch on a very tight leash. They have been fully controlling and pacing the development of the system and as much as possible the narrative around it since before launch and throughout the first months. They’re determined to make absolutely sure the Switch develops in the best pace possible. They don’t necessarily give the consumer everything they want (which many consumers of course argue is the best way), but they cater the experience in such a way that in the long run everything stays fresh, new and compelling to keep coming back.
I very much suspect this is why Virtual Console isn’t yet on the system either, and why it will probably look a lot different than before. Same goes for many other features: Keep distractions low and give space to both first and third party releases to shine and not clutter the playing field.
As for Nintendo’s software, like Mario Odyssey, I expect things to be much further along with most (even unannounced) games than they’d previously have. Ready to resolve issues behind the scenes without having to publicly delay, ensuring a constant stream of great titles in the future just like they’ve done this year.
It’s all part of a very tight and very thought through (and likely very secret) road map for the Switch.
I would imagine this means that Netflix won’t be too far behind
That and Nintendo updating their web browser. I hope it’s the same as Wii U’s which was awesome.
We get it. Everyone was cautiously optimistic about the Switch but now that the fear of its failing is long buried, let’s go all out on supporting this little badass. :)
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