MP3 vs. AAC/MP4 music

[bluaki]

Is there any reason at all for Nintendo to choose to only have codecs for AAC music in both the DSi's music player and the Wii's Photo Channel (1.1)? As far as I can tell, MP3 is much more popular and easier to find than M4A, not to mention it shouldn't be hard production-wise to just include two codecs for both M4A and MP3.
AAC might have higher quality, but it's pointless to use it if all your AAC music is just converted from MP3. Not to mention the converting process on a computer is extremely slow.

[WiiGuy]

this is what one guy says...
"Seems strange that Nintendo would not support MP3, but that is no doubt due to the fees required for making a device MP3-compatible."
http://www.aeropause.com/2009/04/first-thirty-dsi/

[darkmario]

Not to mention the converting process on a computer is extremely slow.

Its not that slow. My each of my songs took like 15-30 seconds. And my wma files took leess than 10 seconds.


But i'm still mad that nintendo did that.

[Macawmoses]

I believe they rambled off a rant about how AAC is like blu-ray - we won't appreciate it now, but down the road it'll be huge, we'll thank them then, give them money, etc.

[Silverhawk79]

I think mp3 devices need to pay a huge license fee or something. Either that or Nintendo is just silly.

[bluaki]

I think mp3 devices need to pay a huge license fee or something. Either that or Nintendo is just silly.

Well, the Wii supported mp3 playing in Photo Channel 1.0, but the 1.1 update removes mp3 support and replaces it with AAC.
If they were already supporting mp3, I don't see why they would drop it when users update.
Unless they just decided to stop paying the MP3 royalty on newly produced Wiis at one point and needed to make them not support mp3 by preinstalling the new photo channel.
DSi is probably just following suit, even though its music playing ability matters much more than the Wii's because most people won't bother to go into a slideshow of photos just to listen to music off their SD card and because music is typically played with portable players.

[WiiGuy]

The DSi does NOT play acc, it play m4a...i just tryed to play acc, and it didn't work

[bluaki]

The DSi does NOT play acc, it play m4a...i just tryed to play acc, and it didn't work

They both are using the AAC codec, they just have different file extensions and probably something like a different container.