Wii TV Channel is worthless… useful?!
Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 9:46am by Jack
Some of the Wii Channels released thus far have been, in a word or two, slightly less useful than a urinal in the women’s restroom. The new Japanese TV Channel, which serves as a 3D TV Guide of sorts, however, might actually be one of the first that you’ll use on a regular basis (Japan only, but an interesting concept nevertheless).
[Wii TV Channel Isn’t Dumb — Kotaku]
March 7th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I have a ‘guide’ with my digital cable. It works fine, and my wii doesn’t even have to be on! Not useful, except to take up more of my non expandable memory
March 7th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I actually use the Internet Channel and the News Channel more than the games on the Wii!
March 7th, 2008 at 10:31 am
It’s useless. I’m not going to turn on my Wii to find out what’s on TV. I don’t even use the Internet or Weather Channels, there’s no way I’m going to use the TV Channel.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:39 am
I don’t think I would use this neither. It’s cute and all, but everybody has a DVR nowadays, and I don’t see the point of having an extra cutsy channel program on the side.
Why is Nintendo sepending so much time of trivial little channels like that when they should work on what the concept of the Wii was from the beginning: a console that brings up the family together. I fail to see any effort to connect families that are appart. There isn’t any family friendly games that support strong Wi-Fi connectivity.
To tell you the truth, I am very annoyed with my favorite game Co. Nintendo. All the fuss that the “Revolution” code name had brought has been a chimera that does not seem to come to reality.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Yeah! Where’s my Animal Crossing MMO on Wii??
March 7th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
kool, depends what channels you’ll be able to watch…if I can see channels from all over the world..I don’t mind at all…but if its just basic stations and stuff…then oh well..
still awesome tho…
March 8th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Dear Nintendo,
Less TV Guide
More Pikmin
Sincerely,
Andrew-MG
March 8th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I think many are looking at this simply from the North American market perspective. I’ve been messing around with the channel and found it quite impressive. I had the Wii remote working with my TV in no time and it was a strange feeling to hit the A button and have the TV turn off or on.
Anyway the way the cable market works over here in Japan is quite different from the US (and I imagine Canada). There aren’t 600 channels and DVRs, while available, are not very popular here. In many places people just don’t have the room for an extra box like that for the TV. Space is limited and I think Nintendo has made a clever move here with the TV channel.
What I haven’t see reported much is that Nintendo asks if you’d like to participate in submitting your viewing statistics (you can opt out) and they’ll clearly be making some money out of this information. They might even kick it up a notch down the road with targeted advertising so I don’t think they’re wasting their time with this in the Japanese market.
Now, since the major work has be done on the app already, perhaps they’ll translate it send it overseas here. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if this remains a Japan-only channel since it wouldn’t have as big of a niche in the NA market. Besides just the interface translation they’d also have to update the TV remote codes (I didn’t look closely but I don’t recall seeing any non-Japanese TVs on the list) as well as the service provider which is a very simple affair here since almost everyone has the national TV service NHK.
Either way it’s quite clear Nintendo is on to something here with the concept. The WiiMote is literally replacing your TV remote which says something in itself in the way a family might interact and view a game console.
-Dan in Japan
March 10th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I thought they should do something like this a long time ago. I hate how the guide interface on my cable box is so slow and clunky. It would be nicer to just point at the show I want to watch.
Bring it to the US!