Every Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.
With the release of the 3.0 system update and the Metroid Prime 3 preview, it became evident that there are plenty more possibilities to be explored in the ongoing development of the Wii's channel interface. Based on what we've seen so far, I'd like to postulate on what more they could potentially deliver.
It took a long while for Metroid Prime 3's hype train to leave the depot, but when it finally got moving, it was with a force that could knock Superman on his duff. With no more warning than the inviting blue pulse of our disc slots, we were treated to a system update that enabled RSS-like updates to the News and Weather channels, and also introduced a few game preview features centered around Samus' next adventure. Streaming video, an interactive puzzle of sorts, and now we're starting to feel like we're on a promotional website -- only it's a directly-accessible channel dedicated to a new game!
Of course, we should expect to see preview channels spring up for many future titles, but the question is which games, and what type of content will the previews consist of? Super Mario Galaxy and Smash Brothers Brawl seem likely candidates, but lesser known titles like Battalion Wars 2, and 3rd party games like Dewey's Adventure or Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles should also be considered for this treatment.
Videos are a great start, and non-challenging, unrewarding puzzles less so, but the big thing that most people really want is a playable demo. After all, Nintendo is using the preview to market a game to people that already own the Wii, many of whom may not be familiar with anything outside of Wii Sports and mini-game compendia. Nintendo's theme for E3'06 was "Playing is believing." They should hold firm to that motto and find some way to deliver demos, be it through preview channels or some other means of distribution.
For a period in the GBA's life, Nintendo distributed children's television shows on cartridges, and a few years ago Nintendo started an animation studio. Their investments have indicated a desire to break into other forms of media, and with streaming video as an option, perhaps we'll see new channels spring up for TV shows or Nintendo-produced movies. A one-time fee of a few hundred Wii points gets you the channel, and you can watch from a selection of shows at your leisure. Or how about a YouTube channel? All the content featured on YouTube is already in the process of being converted to the AVC format, which we know now that the Wii supports.
You know, for kids!
Sports fans could have channels for their favorite sports, with realtime news tickers scrolling across the load screen, and game info inside the channel. This would be a great place to mirror the types of content found in Nintendo Power magazines, but with the enhancements of interactive multimedia. There have already been rumors of the Nintendo Power back catalog being offered up through the Wii Shop.
We have no doubt that Nintendo has plenty of interesting ideas that they're building into channels. And there's bound to be plenty of surprises and novel concepts for entertainment. Leave a comment to tell us what you think they might have planned, and what you hope to see in future channels.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-21-2007 @ 12:22PM
Nushio said...
I've been waiting for some sort of DS Demo Channel, at least.
Although I wouldn't mind Wii game demos, to be honest, they wouldn't fit on the Wii, considering its reduced memory size.
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8-21-2007 @ 12:27PM
TooManyGames said...
I'd like Nintendo to program in-house VC emulators for the DS and develop some way to let me transfer my VC downloads to my DS to play on the go. I know N64 would likely be an impossibility, but the homebrew emulators are pretty good, Nintendo should be able to code their own flawless emulation system for NES, SNES, Gen, and TG.
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8-21-2007 @ 12:31PM
SpinachConvention said...
I'm going to be the first to say it here... DVD channel (including ability to play CD's including mp3 CD's)
Not an original channel though I know, but would be really nice!
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8-21-2007 @ 1:03PM
Sheb Hauser said...
I'd like to see Gameboy and GBA titles on the virtual console.
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8-21-2007 @ 1:24PM
Adam Crownoble said...
Joost and/or NetFlix Watch It Now channel
And a ditto to the DVD/CD/MP3 channel. Seriously, how hard would it be to play MP3s off of an SD card.
Also, it would be nice to turn any webpage into it's own channel as a form of bookmarking. I'd like to have Finetune and even some flash games as their own channel for easy access.
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8-21-2007 @ 1:41PM
TWOO DEE said...
I'm gonna side with both TooManyGames and SpinachConvention, here.
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8-21-2007 @ 1:43PM
theLoneYoshi said...
Wait... Since when did Wii support the H.264/AVC format? Last time I checked, the Photo Channel only displayed videos in the MJPEG format.
If it's not the photo channel that uses H.264, which does?
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8-21-2007 @ 2:03PM
Steelwurm said...
How about something simple, like a Hi Scores channel. Top scores for games that both you and your registered friends have, in addition to Regional, National and International high scores for games you've played.
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8-21-2007 @ 2:36PM
stummies said...
I don't know if that was an intentional Hudsucker Proxy reference or not... but thank you :D
VC Emulation ---> DS would be so amazing, probably what I wish for most (anyone find that they never get to spend enough time with their VC purchases? Playing them on the go would be pretty clutch). I don't see it happening though.
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8-21-2007 @ 2:56PM
Mike Sylvester said...
@theLoneYoshi
The Metroid Prime 3 videos use streaming AVC.
@stummies
I'm glad somebody caught that. I love that movie.
Yeah, being able to play those games on the go would be great. It's also something that bothers me about XBLA or PSN games like Pac-Man CE and Super Stardust HD. Great as they are, I can't give them the play time I'd like, because I can't take them with me.
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8-21-2007 @ 3:26PM
Rob Greig said...
Maybe this preview channel is actually Nintendo testing H.264 playback for future uses?
I would quite like a generic demo/preview channel where you could watch promotional videos of various games and choose to download a free demo if you like the look of it.
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8-21-2007 @ 3:49PM
T-bone and Razor said...
Well, as i've said before, they could stream Wii demos straight off the internet. Load times would be hell, but it could work, without forcing people to have to buy expensive HDD's (if they were proprietary, they'd be overpriced up to or as badly as the 360 HDDs, and its still a cost, although not nearly as bad, for non-proprietary), so all Wii owners with a home broadband connection would be able to take part
Teh internetz rumor mill has said that hackers have already implemented Wii DVD reading via modchip, so its probably something that couldn't be done with straight software, but i bet they could release a USB or SD dongle to patch in the code to read DVDs. But i would think CD's would be a no-go
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8-21-2007 @ 7:45PM
Peter Tangney said...
@comment 5, and whoever else. The Wii can play mp3's.
There's a setting somewhere in the sideshow section of the Photo Channel that lets you play mp3's stored on an sd card.
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8-21-2007 @ 7:55PM
Mike Sylvester said...
@Peter Tangney
The Wii also supports MP3 soundtracks in games. It makes playing Excite Truck that much more enjoyable.
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8-22-2007 @ 12:32AM
Matt said...
ESPN channel? Anyone?
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8-26-2007 @ 2:46PM
Jeremy said...
One I agree about the person who said finetunes as a channel. A channel that streams music would be great. Hell even a TV channel would be a good one just charge a one time fee or even a monthly fee to have TV programming or even movies on demand. I also want the game trailers channel or even vamp that up to include movie trailers.
I would also like to say that streaming game demos would be so great. Just need a good compression rate and it would work like a charm.
Now to the people talking about the DVD playback. The Wii already has a DVD drive in it but it is locked. The Mod chips unlock the drive for DVD playback but Nintendo could be really good to us all and give us a firmware update that will give us DVD and CD playback.
Now I have a wish that they do another update to the shop channel were for one time you enter your birth date and you can't change it after you enter it and give you one free VC download on your birthday. Now that would be positive PR for Nintendo.
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