Nintendo is smart to jump on changing video trends with this service. These are efforts that its competitors have also tried to harness. Microsoft’s Xbox Live service offers a unified search — for videos across Nintendo, Hulu and other services — similar to the Wii U’s, but doesn’t include integration with services such as TiVo. Streaming video is becoming a larger part of U.S. consumption, with Netflix alone making up one-third of all bandwidth use.

And second-screen viewing — where users use their smartphones, tablets or other screens to comment on live television — got a boost this week when Nielsen and Twitter announced that they would partner to make a ratings tool based on data from the social network. Giving gamers a way to use their game consoles, televisions and social media accounts at once furthers Nintendo’s goal to, as Fils-Aime put it in an earlier interview with The Post, have “every consumer in the household to pick up the GamePad at least once a day.”

It’s still not clear, though, whether Nintendo’s new console, even with all its bells and whistles, can beat out competitors from Microsoft and Sony this holiday season. In November, the NPD Group reported that the Xbox 360, first released in 2005, still outsold the Wii U console during its launch period. But Nintendo is making a strong push this holiday season across all gaming markets, appealing to its family base with titles like “Super Mario Bros. U” and to hard-core gamers with titles such as “Assassins’ Creed 3” or “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Wii U.”