Dream Wii Channel
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 8:23am by Jack
Fellow Nintendo ninjas over at Nintendojo are asking an interesting question today: What’s your favorite Wii Channel? So far, I think the whole Channel thing’s been hot and cold for a lot of people. Whereas I enjoy periodically checking the weather (from 7 hours ago) and surfing the Net for a few minutes from my couch, others see it as the plague. Well, something like that anyway.
But the Metroid advertisement preview channel has shown us all that new twists can be applied to old ideas with these Channels, and the upcoming Wii Ware overhaul that will see independently developed downloadable games should prove an interesting experiment, to say the least.
I’m not going to steal Nintendojo’s thunder and ask what your favorite channel is. For that, go over there and enjoy. Here at Infendo though, I want to know what your dream channel would be. Obviously, since this is Nintendo we’re talking about, pr0n and such is immediately disqualified from this impromptu poll.
What would your Dream Wii Channel offer? What would it look like? What would it do? Comment away.
[Blake, for the tip win!]
August 15th, 2007 at 8:49 am
The Demo Channel. Best thing ever.
The Metroid Channel is a step in the right direction, but demo’s would be very awesome, at least DS demos if the ones for Wii are too “heavy”.
The only reason I don’t see this happening is if the demos require too much space per game when downloading (which is a lot of money for servers by Nintendo and who knows if the Wii’s memory can even handle more than a couple of demos).
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I also see a more plausible “comming soon” channel. Similar to the Metroid Channel but under a unified structure, Nintendo can show us all the new upcomming Wii & DS games with GOOD videos (not the horrible VC videos that are too short and rarely let you see what the game’s really like).
August 15th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Personally, I’m still holding out for a Demo Channel. Many people are hoping for / expecting this in some shape or form for Metroid Prime 3, and as Perrin Kaplan is promising “more surprises” for MP3 (before it launches; she IGN for details), this wouldn’t really come as a shocker.
But that’s where things get specific for me: I want a Demo Channel dedicated to Demos for ALL different kinds of games: Virtual Console games, upcoming Wii games, indie-developed games, etc… I hope that this channel be well organized, user-friendly and efficient.
There are a few others I’d like to see happen (something to manage Friend Codes would be nice… but we’re still seeing unique friend codes for different games, so I’m not sure how that would work), but yes, a full-fledged Demo Channel is my personal dream.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Would def like to see a WiiStats channel that merges all your daily play data into weekly, monthly, and all-time charts? You could see what your most played titles were over time, with the data sliced in a bunch of different ways (most played game in August, most often used channel, most often played VC game, etc)
Or if they want to focus on Mii’s, how about a Mii Playground or sorts. One could interact with other Mii’s in real-time (maybe even *gasp* chat!!) and play simple games like tic tac toe or dots. Or the oft-suggested Mii download channel with celebrity/promotional mockups.
How about general leader boards (Wiiners?) for offline games? That couldn’t be too tough. Or if they want to get crazy with online, how about a Wii Olympics channel where Mii’s could square off in WiiPlay-type mini games (they could test selling this app on the Shopping Channel for like $25 worth of points or something).
August 15th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Pictochat is always good for a laugh on DS, so I reckon something similar would make a good Wii channel. The Wiimote with a few simple drawing tools definitely has some entertainment potential. Throw in a couple of pictionary type games as well and it would be a neat little channel.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I’d like to see a “Mii Community” channel, where people could use their Miis to chat online with friends. Each Wii system with this channel would have a house to design and decorate, and you could send invitations to your friends to come and visit. Once friends arrive they can chat or message each other, and maybe even play some (very basic) mini-games.
The online capabilities of the Wii have been woefully underused so far, and with full USB keyboard and voice chat both seeming to be just around the corner, why not give us a good way to use these new features all in one cool channel? Best of all, this would allow an extended community to be established, where two of my friends who don’t know each other could meet and exchange codes (if they choose to).
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My second choice would be a “Stock Ticker” channel that allows users to look up stock prices and performance, and create/track individual portfolios where each account starts out with a limited amount of virtual (ie: imaginary) money to invest. You could even allow users to compare their results over a particular time period to see who makes the best investments.
This second idea is not really kid-friendly, but is a neat “outside the box” idea that would probably attract interest from many older Wii owners.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:14 am
I like that stock ticker idea as well as that wiistats channel.
Many have said a demo channel which is what I also want. I would love a nintendo power channel. Cancel the mag and make it its own channel that can only be seen and subscrided on the wii. And have some mii interaction with it too.
A tips and tricks channel ( maybe made redundant by the np channel?)
A Wii challenge of the Week channel. It’s like a random achievement that’s posted for all to try to attain that runs from trying to duplicate a certain mii to a random challenge in a game.( very xboxy but these are just ideas)
Another is a derivative of my previous challenge idea. a brain age channel. I don’t think they’re not making brain age for wii (big brain is not the same) so they can basically break up the game and post a new excercise challenge every few days or once a week, and make a national tally of how many were able to complete it with best records being shown of like top 100. Call it the WiiSmart channel
On the heels of that, maybe a daily crossword channel? And make it thematic every once in a while
A music channel that you can just play mp3′ s from your sd card with like a trippy background
I can’t think of anything more right now
August 15th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Demo channel seems to be a favorite, and why not? Even the stock ticker could be cool. And once Wii-ware takes off, I’m sure there’ll be some kind of presentation platform, and I still think a Nintendo Power channel would be really cool, with reviews and previews. You could actually package a lot of good stuff in that kind of channel, including demos or expansion downloads (a la XBox live…).
August 15th, 2007 at 10:21 am
XviD channel
August 15th, 2007 at 10:25 am
My dream channel….one that would never happen…is a Game & Watch Channel/Museum.
Nintendo has been bringing back Game & Watch games for years with the Game & Watch Gallery series, and more recently with the Club Nintendo-exclusive Game & Watch Collection. I think it’d be a fun idea to bring every Game & Watch title (with the exception of some, such as Popeye, where Nintendo no longer has rights to Popeye) into a Wii Channel and have it playable.
This could work in two ways. Either the user could download the entire Channel for a sum of Wii Points and have every Game & Watch game be immediately available, or the user could download the Channel for free, have a sampling of a few Game & Watch games, and then download the remaining ones for Wii Points.
The Channel would have a museum-like motif, with Game & Watch games being selectable and virtually recreated on-screen. It could also be a celebration of Game & Watch’s history, with information on each game in the series, as well the series itself, readily available.
The two player Game & Watch games could be played with a friend, high-scores could be saved into Wii’s internal memory, a Daily Play option could be instated with a random Game & Watch game being chosen, and the player would need to get as high a score as possible, and Game & Watch games could be beamed to the DS for remote play.
And heck, it’d be easy money, wouldn’t it be? The Game & Watch titles could be priced very cheap, between 50-100 points, and Nintendo could potentially even push it with 200 points on certain games.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Demo channel yes, but I say not just Wii demos. I also want DS demos that can be sent from the Wii to your DS (similar to stores DS Download Stations, but you dont have to leave home)
August 15th, 2007 at 10:30 am
I’ve always hoped for a Movie Times Channel. Pretty much, a Moviefone channel.
I also like the idea of a preview channel, kind of like the new Metroid channel.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:48 am
I would love a demo channel as well, but unlike the Metroid demo, I don’t want to have to download each demo. I would prefer a channel where you have to go on line, but once there you can simply click on the demo you want to see (for any and all demos…GC, DS, VC, Wii) , and it’s all stored on Nintendo’s side, not on my Wii’s memory. Kind of like Nintendo’s own version of youtube, but dedicated soley to demos.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:15 am
These are really good ideas everyone, I just hope someone from nintendo visits this site. I really loved that mii community channel idea, almost like a real time animal crossing, but with real mii’s
August 15th, 2007 at 11:16 am
“A music channel that you can just play mp3′ s from your sd card with like a trippy background”
Gee whiz… it’s so simple, but such a great idea!
Sure, we can play mp3s from an SD card using the photo channel slideshow feature. But why not include a dedicated music channel? For a full channel, just throw in a basic equalizer, some preset sound options, dynamic playlist control, and some visualization choices.
And how fun would it be to see your Miis dancing to the music you choose and “interacting” in different environments - house party, concert hall, dance club…
August 15th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Dumb question: what is XviD? (Downloadable movies, I think?)
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The Game & Watch Channel/Museum also sounds really cool. Do you think many people would pay to download the games? It would be really neat to see them all in one place, along with a little bit of historical information. Maybe include some type of challenge/reward system when playing the games too, where medals can be unlocked for high scores. Great way to think outside the box with that suggestion!
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The one other channel I’d like is a channel that makes good use of WiiConnect24. Right now, that kind of feels like a wasted feature… but maybe the daily challenges or WiiStats/Wii leader board ideas could change that?
August 15th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Farnic said: Demo channel yes, but I say not just Wii demos. I also want DS demos that can be sent from the Wii to your DS (similar to stores DS Download Stations, but you dont have to leave home)
This is absolutely brilliant, and since I have both a Wii and DS, I’d get a lot of use out of this.
Other than that, it would be nice to see a streaming television channel or something else along those lines.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:52 am
I’ve mentioned this “dream channel” before: a Friends Channel, which from the comments above looks like something that most people want in one form or another.
A download channel would be a “nice to have” channel, but I feel a channel that lets you see who in your Friends roster is playing online right now, or which games they have played, and be able to send them an invitation to join you in a game is something that is going to be needed pretty soon, once we get more than half a dozen online-capable games for Wii!
August 15th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
I agree the Demo Channel is required… I hate paying 6-7 bucks to rent a game, then if I really like it, buying it for 68 bucks after taxes (all Canadian prices!)
I already own 13 Wii games, and have probably rented 6 or 7 of them to try out first, so the money I could’ve saved would’ve been the cost of another game!
Besides, the video stores near me don’t keep a good collection of popular games (6+ copies of TMNT and 1 copy of Mario Strikers makes no sense!).
All Nintendo needs to do is a firmware update to enable us to use SD cards or USB hard drives to run saves and downloads from, then we could download demos to our hearts content… I’d have no problem picking up a 250 Gig HD for 90 bucks (got that deal the other day at Wal-Mart) to use only for the Wii…
August 15th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Ditto on Demo Channel.
I really like the SmartChannel, its an amazing idea, pitch that.
A pictionary Channel would be cool with friendly Wii’s. Though Nintendo might fear users would draw inappropriate things (who wouldnt?).
I would also like to see the Mii-related channels consolidated into the Mii channel, so that ‘everybody votes’ and the upcoming ‘check Mii out’ would be in one place.
Folders for channels would be great too…with little NES or TG-16 images on the folder to organize them
August 15th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I’d like to see a “Subdirectory Channel” so I can organize all my other channels. For example, I’d like to create a subdirectory for NES games, another for SNES games, etc.
But since that’s really more of a Wii dashboard functionality update and not really a channel, I’ll have to echo the XviD channel idea but expand that to more of a “Remote Media” channel, where I could browse on over to my windows or linux box’s SMB/NFS/etc. shares and play mp3’s, videos, and other types of media directly from those systems since the Wii is already connected to the home wireless network anyway. For now I’m relegated to using the Internet channel with a website like the Wii optimized interface for FineTune until I set up a local webserver with similar functionality. It would be so much nicer if the Wii could just do it natively over filesharing via a Channel.
August 15th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I want a Demo-channel with upcoming Wii games already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
August 15th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
A trivia channel would be fantastic. Actually, there could be one in which just burps out a new piece of trivia every day to read (a bit like fortune in Unix), or perhaps even a multi player trivia game which was always getting new trivia via download. I’d pay good money for the latter, and the former would give me good reason to turn on my Wii every day.
August 15th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Demos
DS Uploads/Demos.
Expanded Stats.
One channel for game previews.
A channel for VC game previews (like what’s on the Web site, but a channel).
Nintedo Power Channel.
Nintendo History. Maybe even Today in Nintedo History.
Friends List Bulletin Board.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
iTunes Channel .. connects to your home computer’s shared iTunes library and streams music to your Wii (sort of like an Apple TV)
Animal Crossing Channel .. you play it just like the Animal Crossing game, every day, but you don’t need to insert a disc (thereby encouraging you to quickly play a little every day)
August 15th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I want the VC to be one channel only , not like it is now, each game has its own channel this way it takes to much space..
I agree with some of the above , I want demo channels for the VC, Wii, and DS download via Wii, I think the preview channel is cool to have, I like the Idea of the Mii community channel aka ( Home ), a WiiStats/Wii leader channel that informs you what game is being played the most what channel is being used the most, how many are online and playing what game.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I would like to see user content channels like “Nintendo fan art” channel or “fan videos” channel. All content of course would have to be videogame related and there could be rankings for quality, even voting and contests to win a free Wii title or something.
And… drum roll please… the “Nintendo music” channel… a channel where we can just kick back, take off our pocket protectors and listen to the sweet tunes of Nintendo games from all platforms. At special times there could be a show of fan “remixes” of Nintendo music also.
Hey Reggie, are you reading this?!
August 15th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
One more thing… free VC gameplay for a day channel!!! You would get to play one VC title as chosen by Nintendo, for 24 hours! Rock!
August 15th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Not really a channel, but I think it’d be awesome to have a screen saver on the Wii. How cool would an under water level Mario aquarium screen saver be?
A Nintendo Power channel would be cool, too.
And I agree that an MP3 channel with dancing Miis would kick heaps of ass.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
an IM channel like AIM that would just be great
August 15th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
!!M channel (Instant messaging, like Skype~Could use mii channel or mii’s like the mii channel where they walk around to show who is online. Instant messaging and voice chat!!)
Demo Channel for upcoming wii games
mp3 channel with the cool trippy backgrounds like wmp (itunes + windows media player backgrounds?)
demo channel for vc games
demo channel for ds games (ds download play from wii)
August 16th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Possible DVD channel update?
August 16th, 2007 at 7:43 am
I reckon Nintendo should allow RSS feeds.
Yes I know that people can just go to their own RSS feeds via the Internet Channel, but having an RSS channel that allows you to put in feeds and previews the most up to date feeds on the main menu, ala News Channel, would be good to have.