Wii Rally

Do you take a lot of pride in designing your Miis? A new Wii channel that launches Monday will allow Wii users to show off their creations. Think of the Check Mii Out Channel as a virtual beauty contest where people can not only show off their Miis but can vote on their favorites.

Through the posting plaza, users can exchange, submit, or just browse for Miis. Once you’ve found one you like, you can tag it as a favorite, so it will be easy to find again.

Users will be challenged to submit look-a-like Miis of celebrities or even fictitious characters in the contest section. Submit your Mii that looks like Abraham Lincoln or a Mii Tooth Fairy. Then Wii users can vote on which ones they think most resembles the person.

The free Check Out Mii Channel launches the evening of November 11th.

Yesterday was election day across the United States as voters cast their ballots for local and state races. Earlier this week I had cast my vote but it was through my Wii. It would be nice if I could have voted for the elections from the comfort of home, but I’m sure there are too many problems with that for it to ever happen. No, I voted through the Everybody Votes channel on the Wii. While I have to admit that the channel itself seems unnecessary, I do like Nintendo’s attempt to make a channel that is social.

Wii owners can submit their own questions to be asked through the channel. Each question has two answers to choose from. You can cast your vote, see the results, and even predict which answer will be more popular.

The channel is fun for all of five minutes but is still a good move in the right direction to connecting Wii users.

Can’t be at E3? Well neither can I, So I’ve got the next best thing Internet video.

OK here Wii go.

First up for the Nintendo media briefing is a 2 minute video of some news stories and user videos which have used the Wii as a focal point. Nintendo begins by tooting their own horn….obviously.

After the short video a gigantic man in a beige suit [Reggie Fils-Aime, NoA President] walks to the middle of the stage and says “Hi I’m Reggie and I am Happy!”

The first segment of Reggie’s speech is about all the stuff that only venture capitalists and investors care about. You know stuff like expanding demographics, sales figures, and market share info….BORING!

Now some interesting stuff. Reggie states that by the holiday shopping season there should be over 160 Wii titles available in North America and over 430 DS titles for the same territory.

After a second video similar to the first Reggie introduces to the world the first offspring of the Wii Remote and nunchuck. The Wii Zapper a housing for your Wii Remote and nunchuck making it look like a small SMG. Reggie goes on to talk about 3 new games that are being designed around the new housing, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Sega’s Ghost Squad a popular arcade light gun game, and the newest addition to the Medal of Honour series will also be centered around the Wii Zapper which will retail for about 19.99 USD. Reggie also mentions plans for a 1st party title that will come packed with a zapper later this year.

(more…)

In the interest of covering my own butt I’m gonna file this one under rumour but I’m getting word that Wii owners will soon have an easier time sending messages and surfing the web using the Internet Channel. This easier time is brought to you buy a novel idea for an input device; a keyboard.

Word on the street is that Logitech is stepping up to manufacture some keyboards which will work with the USB ports located on the rear of the console. But wait…. there’s more! The May issue of Game Informer says that even though they haven’t announced anything official yet Nintendo may jump into the peripheral market with a keyboard of their own.

To be honest I was a little surprised when I tried to plug a regular USB keyboard in to my Wii and it failed to work. This news however seems to be a step in right direction and definitely could get more people using the Wii message system and Internet Channel which to be honest doesn’t get a lot of play ’round my house but that could change.

Face it your Wii spends a lot of time on the internet. With traveling Miis, inter-console messages and WiiConnect 24 your Wii sends and receives a lot of info across the intertubes. So it comes as no surprise that the Wii is starting to see its first vulnerabilities.

I was reading the Tanooki today and was pointed to a post from the McAfee Avert Labs Blog where the writer David Rayhawk warns that those using the 1st or “trial” version of the Wii Opera browser may have a system venerability. Don’t worry too much though there isn’t much that can be done to your Wii from an outside source. I’m guessing that “worst case scenario” here would be a wiped hard drive and missing game saves. I think a couple of reports may have surfaced about manipulated images but that has not been confirmed.

The good news is that in the latest edition of the Wii Opera browser the problem has been patched. So once you upgrade to the “full” version you should be safe and secure. If you don’t have the “trail” version of the browser or your Wii is not connected to the internet you’re already sitting pretty. Don’t forget that come June the Wii Internet Channel will cost you 400 points so act now before this limited time offer is gone…gone…..GONE!

Well this has been a long time coming but I thought it was time for the steallar return of Feature Friday today I’m gonna tell you all about the Wii Photo Channel.

First of all your going to need one thing before you even think about trying to fire up the Photo Channel. That one thing being an SD memory card. Why you ask? Because you need a a photo to use the Photo Channel silly. So get yourself a card pop it in your digi cam and then snap a quick pic of your friends, your parents, your pet hippo whatever you like. Once you have a photo put the SD card in the SD memory slot located on the of the Wii next to the disc slot. Alright start up the Wii Phot Chanel and you’re off to the races.

I’ve created a video (with some help of course) which will demonstrate some of the things you can do with the application.

Once you have made a photo you like you can then post it to the Wii Message Board and from there send it to as many of your friends as you like.

Thanks to Lisa for filming and helping me with the video and hosting.

So I am relaxing watching The Simpsons when out of the corner of my eye I see my Wii starts to glow that familiar and hypnotic blue indicating that I have a message. So I start her up thinking it’s just some random message from one of my friends but it’s from my best friend Nintendo. A new version of the Wii Internet Channel is available today.

If you already have the trial version of the software than you are just quick system update and a download away from full browser goodness. What’s new? You ask why I already told you that so lets dig into the Wii Rally archives and find that post. Here ya go!

You know you have to hand it to the Wii a whole new piece of software and I had it up and running in less than 10 minutes with a 3 MB/Sec connection. Probably would have been quicker if I had an ethernet connection but still only WiFi for now which is fine because I hate wires.

Something small I noticed right off the bat was that there were some new additions to my favorites list aside from the obvious Wii Rally Viidelectrix and WiiCade I noticed that Google and Yahoo were now among my favorite web pages. Very sneaky guys I knew I should have called Nintendo and asked them to put Wii Rally in every one’s favs. I guess hindsight is always 20/20

I can only assume that a good percentage of Wii owners out there in Nintendo land have taken the time to download the “free trial” version of the Wii Opera browser. The application has been available since December and web hounds have been itching to get their hands on the full version of the Opera software. That time is fast approaching.

In a press release last week Nintendo announced that the full version is coming sometime in April and will remain free until June when Nintendo will slap a 500 Wii Points price tag on the software. My understanding is that if you have taken the time to use the “free trial” version then you will be able to update to the full version without asking your girlfriend for her credit card number to snag some Wii Points.

Nintendo is promising the following features will be integrated into the full version of the Opera browser.

From the Nintendo Press Release

improved zooming and scrolling

an improved zoomed font

shortened startup times

quicker access to “favorites”

an ability to hide the toolbar

buttons that will instantly type common preset letters, such as “www” or “.com”

Although any kind of info on new software is important this latest press release fails to address some of my specific concerns specifically what kind of Flash players will be compatible with the full version. With the “free trail” version you can view or use any website that supports Flash 8 or lower but as the more and more sites upgrade to Flash 9 you’ll start finding more and more websites failing to display. Don’t worry I think YouTube and GameTrailers are still safe but I have had a couple problems with GameVideos but then again I get problems every time with GameVideos even on my PC.

I don’t know about the rest of you but the Wii Internet Channel gets a fair amount of play on my Wii. I’m of course a fan of the Viidelectrix and other flash based sites. Gmail works just fine and as always Wii Rally is fully functional when viewed with the Wii browser.

Source: Nintendo
Comic from Opera

I noticed something interesting about the Wii Shop channel today.

Once you have purchased a Virtual Console game from the Wii shop channel you can no longer see the price. If you view the listing for a Virtual Console game after you have purchased it in the area that once displayed the price (in Wii Points) the words “downloaded” appear. I know this is nothing new but I recently pondered the implication of such a feature. Yes it’s good to see what you have already downloaded so as to prevent repeat downloads but what is stopping Nintendo from changing the prices of Virtual Console games later on?

Look at it this way. You download Donkey Kong for the NES for 500 Wii points you play it and enjoy it. Then 6 months later Nintendo changes the price to 250 Wii points. But you will never know because as far as you know it’s “downloaded”. So you go through life wondering why people are snickering at you behind your back. All because you paid 5 bucks for 3 stages of Donkey Kong, what’s up with that anyway.

I’ll give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt though. I have faith that big “N” wouldn’t do business in such a sneaky underhanded way but then again EA was founded on similar principals. Just something to think about before you blow all those Wii points on something you might regret later.

Aside: Stupid Donkey Kong I swear there was more than 3 stages back in 1983.

The first question that comes to mind is “Why does this even exist?”.

Nintendo surprised Wii owners on Wednesday by releasing a new piece of software via the Wii Shop channel. The Everybody Votes channel is the first piece of stand alone software that has been issued for the Wii. Talk about tripping right out of the gate. Sure the concept seems intriguing, vote in national and world wide polls and my favorite part see the results. Sorry I’m about to pee in my pants I’m so excited about looking at statistics and the prospect of finding out how many Wii owners prefer chocolate over flowers. The Everybody Votes channel seems like a sad attempt at one of those “The whole family can play things” just excecuted very poorly. I mean they could have at least made it fun to use. Trust me it’s about as exciting as browsing the Wii Shop Channel.

As dull as it may be the Everybody Votes channel is totally free. Nintendo makes you go jump through a few hoops in the form of a system update and a trip to the Wii Shop channel to download the actual application. It is nice to see that Nintendo is at least playing with the idea of linking consoles by a means other tha the friend codes we all love to input.