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Nintendo on Wii Message Board, Play History revealed

All these smalls features are really cool when you take a look at the bigger picture. Five years I could never imagine Nintendo doing stuff like this. Iwata FTW.
 
Aoyama This is getting away slightly from the discussion of Wii itself, but just as Kuroume-san said earlier, I'd love to design my own Channel for the console. There's a lot of people in he company who have the same ambition!
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Would be cool to have a Miyamoto's Brain channel!

This is a bit technical, but by using the + and - Buttons on the Wii Remote, the user can scroll through the Channels without having to return to the main Menu Screen every time. Each Channel actually has its own particular chime which sounds when you switch to that Channel.
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If Nintendo allows you to set up certain events to mark on people's calendars that would be really awesome. For instance a GAF Mario Kart get together or a Madden football match at such and such date & time would be marked on everyone's calendar on your buddy list and it warns you when that event approaches.

For Animal Crossing it would be neat if you can put on the message board that you want to trade such and such item or there is a good price for a certain item at the store so everyone on your list would be notified.

There are actually a ton of possiblities with this.
 
Sounds like it's univeral. Wouldn't make sense to have friend codes for your Wii, and then need to make another friend code list for games too. Just import the list over if need be. Just can't be sure though. Nintendo can do some dumb shit from time to time. Here's hoping :).

Anyway, this is some really cool stuff. Can't believe Nintendo is doing it too, but this is still in their 'simple, ease of use' style.
 
I didn't know about this. Pretty cool.
Tamaki said:
This is a bit technical, but by using the + and - Buttons on the Wii Remote, the user can scroll through the Channels without having to return to the main Menu Screen every time. Each Channel actually has its own particular chime which sounds when you switch to that Channel. This means that simply flicking through the Channels becomes fun! (laughs) It's as if the Channels are welcoming you!
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Kuroume said:
Well, on the Wii Menu Screen where the Channels are listed, each Channel icon has its own unique and exciting animation. However, these animations do not necessarily stay the same. Some Channels will have a different animation depending on the circumstances. For example, the icon of the Forecast Channel might show that it is going to be sunny and 28 degrees today, so if you just want to know about today's weather, you can easily tell by looking at the icon. These things, I think, are a part of Wii's unique appeal.
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http://ms.nintendo-europe.com/wii/?site=v3_03.html&l=enGB
 
Cauliflower of Love said:
So those "play times" are going to get back to nintendo, right?


Free surveys.
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No, but all there functionnalities are really nice: they add somehting different at the system. I think that it could have some potential.
 
Benadryl Hitman said:
If Nintendo allows you to set up certain events to mark on people's calendars that would be really awesome. For instance a GAF Mario Kart get together or a Madden football match at such and such date & time would be marked on everyone's calendar on your buddy list and it warns you when that event approaches.

For Animal Crossing it would be neat if you can put on the message board that you want to trade such and such item or there is a good price for a certain item at the store so everyone on your list would be notified.

There are actually a ton of possiblities with this.
Click to expand...

Yeah, their really going to be able to draw communities together quite effectively with this. For me this is awesome as most of my friends have gotten married and moved away. This will definitely put us in touch more often. This will be great for the entire family as well as my parents plan on putting one in their home too.
 
How about a fiend code. Keeps track of your fiends:lol
Just kidding.

Universal Friend Code sounds fine One code to rule them all. And if Nintendo ever gets into "banning" then it will keep people in line because you would have to pay or buy a new Wii just to get back into online playing.

For the record, with all the penis, swastikas emblems & offensive names on the Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, etc. has their ever been or will be banning on a Nintendo online server?
 
Sounds cool to me. Kinda goes along with my opinion that the MiiChannel will be used as a MySpace-type homepage for different things. Hopefully the friends code thing is acceptable (one friend, one code, all games) and that we can see a nice High Score listing, even if it is only limited to friends.

Moreover, it's cool to here specifics about Nintendo's online plan. It's clear that they have a goal, a direction, and a path to get there. I look forward to hearing more about this...it seems really cool.
 
The more and more I read about Nintendo's strategy and ideas behind the Wii the more it impresses me.

The whole idea behind the Wii channels and the implementation of it is ingenious. Couple that with the fact that you interact with the console through a freakin remote and you will begin to see how easily approachable this console will be to everyone. If Nintendo can deliver the software to take advantage of the Wii channel aspect of the console I expect huge sales will follow. And if they do the Wii will be a social phenomenom no doubt in my mind.

Third party publishers need to to get their asses in motion to take advantage of the what the Wii is trying to accomplish. A console that blends the internet and gaming and takes gaming from a solo hobby to something that is a social hobby (you ever wonder why the console is need Wii?). That is what Nintendo is trying to accomplish with the Wii and it is also why approachability and implementation is key and it looks to me that Nintendo already has this covered. To develop for the Wii publishers out there need to recognize the fundamental shift the Wii platform represents; simply porting existing games they make for the 360 and the Ps3 won't cut it, the same goes for shoehorning Wii controls onto traditional type games. Designers with the brains and creativity to make new types of games and the publishers out there willing to take a risk on their ideas are the ones who are going to make bank.
 
LegendofJoe said:
Designers with the brains and creativity to make new types of games and the publishers out there willing to take a risk on their ideas are the ones who are going to make bank.
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Amen brother Joe.
 
Designers with the brains and creativity to make new types of games and the publishers out there willing to take a risk on their ideas are the ones who are going to make bank.
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Amen, indeed. But I hope they take new, innovative risks and not wait for Nintendo to make the mold. Majesco is already doing Brain Training games but they won't sell because everyone is waiting for the next Nintendo Brain Training game. EA is putting pets in their sims which won't sell as much as Nintendogs. Everyone is waiting for the next Nintendogs or Ninten(Insert animal here) from Nintendo.

Also some more info from Wii.com

By using the SD Card Slot on the front of Wii, you can view the pictures and movies* * Playable movie formats are limited.

You can freely change the order of all the Channels except the Disc Channel which is always shown in the upper left-hand corner.
 
GreenNight said:
Amen brother Joe.
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That brings me to the whole idea of cost verses potential benefit.

The reasoning, I believe, behind making the Wii underpowered (besides saving Nintendo $) was to make the barrier to entry cheaper for publishers out there willing to take financial risks by trying something new. By setting the graphical bar low the cost of making Wii software wll therefore be low (at least in regards to 360 and Ps3 development) which will make publishers much more willing to take risks with the software they put out. It also takes designer's intiative away from focusing on visual presentation and instead shifts it to focus on differentiating your game through gameplay.

Iwata really is quite possibly the smartest man in the industry, whether or not publishers out there take notice is up to them.
 
This is an awesome set of features. And there's supposedly more to come on the connect24 business as they only touched on it briefly at the Sept 14 event.

A lot of features are really obvious post facto and aren't terribly innovative or technically
difficult/bleeding edge. But the combinaTIons they've been put in (integrating a community/BBS/Email service with games and tracking game usage data etc) seems (on paper) to be well thought out and put together. A lot of these features have been discussed individually but not really put together in a package like this.

I also like their implementation of the parental tracking. Rather than a heavy handed V-chip type device they just allow the Wii to keep logs, which parents can use to review their child's activities, but other users can use as a historical statistical informaiton on their playtime. Graph-age will thrive with this stuff. Maybe we can have GAF rankings on the most played Wii games?

As for the friends code issue, I've already said this 2 week back. It does look like it will be one set of codes. Although that doesn't prevent Nintendo from making users re-register codes with certain games so its not exactly bullet proof confirmation. But it is confirmation of some sort that friend codes will reside on the Wii independent of the games being played.
 
I think these are some really great ideas. Hopefully, you could not only keep track of what games you were playing and how long but maybe certain accomplishments--if not, definitely when you beat the game. You could leave messages to friends and family or even yourself to remind yourself what you were doing on days you had beaten a game. I love that it will track playing time, even in-game clocks are sometimes unreliable due to restarts and such. I also wonder if they will make more games like Animal Crossing, at least in that they will affect the Wii Message Board. Knowing Nintendo, they may even list release dates on the Wii Message Board.

Wii is sounding more and more exciting, for more than just games.
 
LegendofJoe said:
That brings me to the whole idea of cost verses potential benefit.

The reasoning, I believe, behind making the Wii underpowered (besides saving Nintendo $) was to make the barrier to entry cheaper for publishers out there willing to take financial risks by trying something new. By setting the graphical bar low the cost of making Wii software wll therefore be low (at least in regards to 360 and Ps3 development) which will make publishers much more willing to take risks with the software they put out. It also takes designer's intiative away from focusing on visual presentation and instead shifts it to focus on differentiating your game through gameplay.

Iwata really is quite possibly the smartest man in the industry, whether or not publishers out there take notice is up to them.
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Yes, but there have been examples of little teams of programmers that need the community to tell Nintendo that their game is worth being on their system. It irritates the hell out of me when I hear stories of innovative games that Nintendo puts a blind eye to.
 
GreenNight said:
Yes, but there have been examples of little teams of programmers that need the community to tell Nintendo that their game is worth being on their system. It irritates the hell out of me when I hear stories of innovative games that Nintendo puts a blind eye to.
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Nintendo are showing interest in finding out who those developers and publishers are though. Maybe they could do with some extra talent scouts or something, but at least their fans got this out of Sam And Max creators, Telltale:

"They took notice! We got a phone call from Nintendo this afternoon. We'll take it from here - please don't email them anymore!"
 
The wierd thing is that aside from playing movies, the Wii seems like it's the most fleshed out, non-gaming tool for the living room. This coming from the gaming-only preachers. The hard part is how do you market these types of features to the masses?
 
GreenNight said:
Yes, but there have been examples of little teams of programmers that need the community to tell Nintendo that their game is worth being on their system. It irritates the hell out of me when I hear stories of innovative games that Nintendo puts a blind eye to.
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Yeah, well that really depends. Funding, publishing, and marketing a product takes a lot of money regardless of how limited the scope is. A company has to feel there is a reasonable chance that the product will be successful before they are willing to place some faith in it and bring it to market. Hopefully, with the VC making distribution costs much lower Nintendo will be more open to helping out the indy game dev. community. If not I agree they definitely could be missing out on some big opportunities.
 
LegendofJoe said:
Hopefully, with the VC making distribution costs much lower Nintendo will be more open to helping out the indy game dev. community. If not I agree they definitely could be missing out on some big opportunities.
Click to expand...

*cough* Castle Crashers.
 
I'm gonna go on a sensless rant here, well nto really a rant kind of a non-sensical rant/brainstorm.

Mii characters in Smash Bros., Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Golf Animal Crossing, etc.

Wii Tennis is and introduction for non-gamers. And it is a freebie. But Mario Tennis, Golf, baseBall will let you use the Nun-Chuck to actually move the characters and other Nintendo full-featured sports games.

I expect to see many YouTube moveis of Wii-Games and tons of clips on How to create famous Mii's(Samuel Jackson, Brian Peppers, Paris Hilton, etc.)

And why isn't that Zapper being used. The handle which holds the trigger & analog looks like the Nunchuck part so this should be the ultimate standard FPS or Light-Gun controller. Holding one controler in your hand like a real gun using your thumb to move forward, back & strafe left/right. Pointer finger to shoot. Left hand has acces to Wii-Mote buttons and holds gun steady for even more precise aiming by just moving the gun itself. Am I missing something here or is Nintendo saving this for their GoldenEye/Halo/KillZone killer?
 
Mr. TV Goggles said:
What a minute, how does the console know the game you inserted is a game you bought, and you didn't rent it or borrow it or something?
Click to expand...

It doesn't, but if you rented it you would select "no." I often get invites to play games on the 360 that I don't own because I rented them once months ago. It would be nice if you could mark games in your history on Live that you don't own anymore or just rented.
 
Hopefully, with the VC making distribution costs much lower Nintendo will be more open to helping out the indy game dev. community. If not I agree they definitely could be missing out on some big opportunities.
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Hear Nintendo, hear! I am making a game with a group of friends (we also have many projects for the future, so you can call us "indie developers if you want), and I will create a tread about it once I rid off of my junior membership.

Thing is, the Microsoft's XNA initiative is great, but it piss me to no limit to see that I have to pay 99$ a month for the possiblity of sharing my game with Xbox customers.

We want a way to sell, "not share" or give for free, but sell our games to the console public. The virtual console can be the distribution channel that we have been waiting for. Let us release our games in the VC for free (and add an exclusivity clausule if you want) so everyone will benefit: Nintendo consumers will have a wider game offering, therefore Wii will be more appealing, and we indies will make money. Make it happen Nintendo!
 
I wonder if there will be a DS channel? Wii exclusive DS news, content & demos would be sweet.
Channels for games like Mario Kart or F-Zero would be awesome too - hosting downloadable content, news/tournaments, high scores/screenshots, etc. There's so much potential.
 
Ikael said:
Hear Nintendo, hear! I am making a game with a group of friends (we also have many projects for the future, so you can call us "indie developers if you want), and I will create a tread about it once I rid off of my junior membership.

Thing is, the Microsoft's XNA initiative is great, but it piss me to no limit to see that I have to pay 99$ a month for the possiblity of sharing my game with Xbox customers.

We want a way to sell, "not share" or give for free, but sell our games to the console public. The virtual console can be the distribution channel that we have been waiting for. Let us release our games in the VC for free (and add an exclusivity clausule if you want) so everyone will benefit: Nintendo consumers will have a wider game offering, therefore Wii will be more appealing, and we indies will make money. Make it happen Nintendo!
Click to expand...

I doubt they would ever do it for free, but they should take the iTunes model and just shave off a percentage for their own profits. Good luck to you man!
 
LegendofJoe said:
The more and more I read about Nintendo's strategy and ideas behind the Wii the more it impresses me.

The whole idea behind the Wii channels and the implementation of it is ingenious. Couple that with the fact that you interact with the console through a freakin remote and you will begin to see how easily approachable this console will be to everyone. If Nintendo can deliver the software to take advantage of the Wii channel aspect of the console I expect huge sales will follow. And if they do the Wii will be a social phenomenom no doubt in my mind.

Third party publishers need to to get their asses in motion to take advantage of the what the Wii is trying to accomplish. A console that blends the internet and gaming and takes gaming from a solo hobby to something that is a social hobby (you ever wonder why the console is need Wii?). That is what Nintendo is trying to accomplish with the Wii and it is also why approachability and implementation is key and it looks to me that Nintendo already has this covered. To develop for the Wii publishers out there need to recognize the fundamental shift the Wii platform represents; simply porting existing games they make for the 360 and the Ps3 won't cut it, the same goes for shoehorning Wii controls onto traditional type games. Designers with the brains and creativity to make new types of games and the publishers out there willing to take a risk on their ideas are the ones who are going to make bank.
Click to expand...
i agree.

i think many are misunderstanding the point of wii photo/weather/news features which are essential to expanding the audience imo. it's not that people are going to hold these things in paramount importance, even though they're neat things to have, the reason for them being there is to introduce people to the remote, and this is a brilliant move imo.

presenting a remote and saying have a go, flick through these photos, check the news, have a look at the weather, is something virtually anyone can do. it's not intimidating and it's training the person to use a games controller in a very subtle, engaging way.

these features are the equivalent of the grounds of the castle in mario 64. where you have a general mess about figuring out what you can do.

reading these interviews has been a real eye opener for me and shows the depths to nintendo's research. wii, from its first moment of inception, was designed to grow the market and i believe it has a really good chance of doing so.
 
As much as I hate the $250 price tag, realizing that i won't have to pay for online and we'll be getting these nifty features, it begins to justify the $50 extra imho.
 
castle007 said:
what is that game in the upper right corner???

it says: "R.T..." and I can't read the rest.
Click to expand...

Foto+R-Type+III:+The+Third+Lightning.jpg
 
I really like the "X bought Y" part so I can know who to befriend and who to ignore when I get a new game XD

However... I hope that there's some sort of mailbox system of sorts... 'cos y'know... I don't want my family reading the messages I get from the child molesters I give my friend code out to.
 
That sounds really cool. Though I wouldve liked a chat type program where I can chat to my friends in realtime. I mean the floodgates should be open when you exhange friendcodes.
 
After reading this thread, this feature expands the possibilities with this system exponentially, and this along with all the features we learned at the Nintendo event 2 weeks ago begin to justify that $250 price.
 
threeball said:
After reading this thread, this feature expands the possibilities with this system exponentially, and this along with all the features we learned at the Nintendo event 2 weeks ago begin to justify that $250 price.
Click to expand...

"begin"? :lol
 
I doubt they would ever do it for free, but they should take the iTunes model and just shave off a percentage for their own profits. Good luck to you man!
Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch for the support, we will try our best! :-) And I really wouldn't mind to give them a percentage of the profits, they created the distribution platafform afterall. It just pisses me off to actually pay before getting any profit. With the "distribution tax" we pay money in the same moment we gain it, and that makes things WAY more easier for us.
 
The features that continue to roll out from Nintendo are impressive to say the least.


The thing I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around is that it's Nintendo doing this.

Who in thier right mind would have seen this coming just a couple of years ago?
 
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