thoughts to blog

har har har…

But yeah, I got a Nintendo Wii last night… finally. Had to flex my financial powers slightly but it was well worth it…

It’s a thing of beauty and here’s why:

• It’s tiny, holy crap. Small, white, neat blue color, wireless…


• The interface has the most pleasant UI ambient sound ever!


• It’s divided everything into channels, which I’ll explain below…


• The remotes are interesting to say the least…


• Classic NES, SNES, N64, TG16, SG … oh yeah!


• WiiConnect24 - kinda like an always on gateway to Wii land


• It’s cheap! I mean, granted it’s a lot less powerful than NextGen consoles, but that’s why I have an Xbox 360 :)


• It has 512mb of built in storage for games and saves… nice

Things I don’t like:

• The fact that it can only go to 480p, but that’s ok.. the games still look good.


• The fact that it didn’t come with component or AT LEAST s-video… and it’s impossible to get the component cables right now.


• Controllers and nunchucks are practically impossible to find… and why don’t they sell them together for cheaper if most games will use the combo.


• The fact that it’s this hard to get in the first place.

Here’s my two babies:

Ok… here’s the coolest part… the Channel system:

Essentially… all of the software and gateways into the world of Wii are controlled by “channels”, much like TV channels. As you can see, there’s an image representing each channel…
Right now, I only have 6 channels available: The game in the slot, the Mii channel, Photo Channel, Shopping Channel, Forecast Channel, and News Channel.

You can zoom in and scroll through channels like you’re really channel surfing and when you go into a channel, you execute the software and it starts. There will eventually be an internet channel with a built in Opera browser.

The Mii channel is interesting… Most online gaming systems have “profiles” that are small profiles and avatars representing you digitally… no big deal. Well on the Wii, you have a Mii… which is your online / gamesave avatar. You can customize it to no end and name it… The coolest part is the interaction with it.

When they did Animal Crossing, they came up with the idea that your little characters can roam out into the Nintendo Wifi world… hopping onto other people’s consoles.

You can now do that with your Mii… and if you have your WiiConnect24 on, other Mii’s will venture onto your system… It’s neat.

The one weird thing that they also took from the DS is the “friend code” idea. Instead of deeply integrating profiles and avatars, they decided to take your physical machine identity and your Mii to create a “friend code” which you can share. Instead of just playing online and requesting someone to be your friend, like in 360… by just using gamertags… Nintendo decided to use “friend codes”.

It’s a step up from the DS version though, where your friend code was different for each game and they really tried to keep you from giving it out to random people. The whole idea is to keep your friends list to people that were REALLY your friend or people that you trust. Not sure I’m so keen on it…

But against all advisement, here’s my Wii friend code:
0323 8508 8250 6712

The messaging system can even integrate with text messages and email, you keep yet another address book in your Wii to hold the info and send messages.

Have fun… and if you want, stop by and check it out! Time to play some Zelda! :)