A lot of the software for that should already been written or even built into the firmware. Then again the home button menu isn't built into the Wii (its a file contained in every channel and disc).
According to Cheesemeister's translation of Nintendo Japan's FAQ:
Well.. We'll see...
More like how they did. The DSi shop was clearly more forward thinking than the Wii shop, as that got absorbed into the 3DS shop and there's no boundaries separating the two.
In the immediate future? 0%.
Save transferring aside, I'd hardly call that sloppy. Barebones, yes, but it was a case of perfect BC at the cost of not being able to implement any Wii unique features. It's biggest slight is the fact I can't copy GC data onto the Wii system memory, and not because I expected to actually use it from there but because it should've been easy to implement. The PS2 doesn't let you use PS1 saves on a PS2 card, or PS1/2 saves from the PS2 HDD, but it still lets you copy them over for backing up given how limited each format is relative to the next step up. Now that the huge memory cards are rare and overly expensive it'd have been nice to be able to juggle the saves as necessary, rather than permanently sacrifice data because Nintendo doesn't really care about working this stuff out (or is VERY bad about planning ahead software wise).
They probably disabled DVD/blu-ray playback despite the greater multimedia focus, so while it technically has a DVD player in it it probably won't play movies.
Maybe they'll let you buy a player off the store?
Both of those are why I think if anything happens it'll be buying a movie watching program off the store: that would be paying the license fee right there, and given the online focus there is literally no use for a dongle to plug in to enable it. Especially since the remote angle won't hold as strong: I'm sure some will want it and so they could do a bluetooth remote, but they're already playing up the angle of using the GamePad as the remote instead, so they probably won't make any multimedia remote.
Well, good upscaling on the console can be nice to have, especially since that can sort of force 480i games into 480p. Pretty much the only upressing you'll get, even though it's usually not as good as natively running 480p in my experience with PS3 BC. More vibrant on my TV though than 480i.
Well, DVD players are, but blu-ray isn't and may still be a serious consideration even with streaming being so widespread. And Wii U games definitely sound like they're running on blu-rays even if they're not labeled as such.
They can have hardware BC and still put Wii U features atop of that.
HDMI absolutely supports 480p output. I do not, however, believe it can send a 480i image, however, but any TV with an HDMI input is going to be able to support 480p or higher anyways. For 480i support you'd have to use different cables.
The WiiU gamepad uses an actual 16:9 resolution (854x480) while the Wii outputs at a 4:3 resolution (640x480 or lower, depending on the game). Widescreen Wii games still use a 4:3 resolution but modify the FOV and HUD elements to appear correct when the image is stretched by the TV. So the gamepad would be a decent solution but certainly not perfect as pixels would still be stretched.
