New Wii Channels This Week

Posted on Tuesday 19th December 2006 at 21:15 by karasuman

Barely a month after launch, two of Wii's promised features will see the light of day. Internet-connected users turned on their Wii today to receive a message from Nintendo informing them that the weather channel was just a short system update away. Furthermore, the Wii web browser will debut on Friday.

The weather channel allows the users to select a city from which to receive a daily forecast, including temperature and wind speed. This might sound pretty boring, but the neat part comes when you can zoom out to view the entire globe, spin it around, and check the weather in all kinds of bizarre places. For the record, it's a measly 1 degree Fahrenheit in Antartica today, but at least it's not snowing.

Friday's content may be a bit more interesting as Nintendo release's the beta version of the Opera browser. Initially, users will be able to download this update for free; it will remain free until June of next year.

Finally, the last promised Wii channel, the News Channel, will arrive at the end of this coming January.

Source: GameSpot

Posted in: Gaming Industry News

Written by	karasuman
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Comments

DrkMagimaster282	Comment 1: 2006-12-19 22:12
	Oh man...these channels are gonna be awesome! I personally am waiting for the news channel, but the weather channel will be cool too. Just think...sports channel...Video channel? who knows whats around the corner for the wii? Question: if the beta version of the opera browser will be released, will there be an upgraded one soon after, and if after june (unlikely), will owners have to pay for the new one. this seems unlikely, but all the possible.
The Ancient	Comment 2: 2006-12-20 14:37
	Subject of a hilarious PA: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/20
Silverlance	Comment 3: 2006-12-20 17:57
	I may just be a boring old developper but how is this any better than just hitting the "TV/AV" button on your TV and channel-surfing to the news/weather forecast, or going to your favorite website on the intar-web and looking these things up? I do see how this is innovative and such, but I'm not sure it's being put to stunning use yet. Even a channel delivering advertisement/trailers for new games coming out soon 24/7 would seem like a better idea... unless they already have that in which case I retract my statement. Seems like it'd be much more financially worthwhile to Nintendo, more interesting for the average gamer, and more practical than knowing wether it's raining outside or not while you're playing a game (though I do suppose many gamers would be too engrossed in their gaming to keep track of these things - the outside world is a mysterious thing, and it's hard to see what the weather's like when you're living in your parents' basement.) Just my thoughts. I guess we'll just have to see where this goes. It hardly affects me, not owning a Wii, but it sounds like something worth keeping an eye on regardless.
Del S	Comment 4: 2006-12-20 19:01
	I'm not sure weather* or not this is really any use, as I have a perfectly good window to stick my head out of. As for the rest, I think I'd stick to BBC News 24 for news myself, unless it's meant to be some sort of videogames news channel. And then I'd stick to BBC News 24 because I'm kind of obsessed with BBC News 24 even though they only speak about videogames when a consoles been launched. But it's still kind of intresting I suppose, and could be indicating that some more intresting things may be coming along later on in a wii** while. Yes, it was lame, yes, it was cheap. That's why I did it. * See above.
No-Name	Comment 5: 2006-12-21 05:23
	I think it will be pretty useful, i probably won't use it but it's an intersting idea.
FallingHeart	Comment 6: 2006-12-26 18:16
	Posting this from my Wii! Typing is hard, though. It does give you a kind of “text messenger” funcionality because it will give you options for words as you type them, so you don't have to type the whole word most of the time. I don't think I'll use this for much more than checking up on my webcomics though. Typing is just way too difficult. ;_;
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