Last week we saw the release of the new Nintendo Wii News Channel. The channel gives you "front page" new style articles in a new creative manner.
You begin your travels by selecting the channel, waiting for the news to download and then choose a topics that interests you. The news is presented with a newspaper look and feel familiar to those retro "hard-copy" readers.
Graphical images from the news are in color with a stock resolution that's better than print but not exactly crisp. You have many levels of zoom at your disposal so you can pick and choose the size of the type you want to read. This will come in handy for those that read far from the TV.
You can view the news in three ways:
The slide show is neat, but a bit slow. The linear postings look similar to an RSS feed from CNN or other popular news sites. The globe is where things get interesting.
The best way to explain the globe view is to watch it in action (see video attached). Spin around, grab the news you want directly and read the headlines to see if your interested. It's cute, its fashionable - useful? Yet to be seen.
Our biggest gripe with the News Channel is its overall usefulness. It seems like a solution looking for a problem, does anyone really care to read the news in front of the TV from a game console? It is neat, cute and innovative but that doesn't really mean anyone will care.
It is a step closer to bringing the game console into the home as a multi-purpose machine, but considering the Wii cannot play standard DVD's it will never be a home theater replacement.
You begin your travels by selecting the channel, waiting for the news to download and then choose a topics that interests you. The news is presented with a newspaper look and feel familiar to those retro "hard-copy" readers.
Graphical images from the news are in color with a stock resolution that's better than print but not exactly crisp. You have many levels of zoom at your disposal so you can pick and choose the size of the type you want to read. This will come in handy for those that read far from the TV.
- SlideShow: news articles presented in a slide-show manner
- Globe: Find the news you want around the world...by spinning around the world.
- Linear Posts: Similar to an RSS feed, listed topics that you can select from.
The slide show is neat, but a bit slow. The linear postings look similar to an RSS feed from CNN or other popular news sites. The globe is where things get interesting.
The best way to explain the globe view is to watch it in action (see video attached). Spin around, grab the news you want directly and read the headlines to see if your interested. It's cute, its fashionable - useful? Yet to be seen.
Our biggest gripe with the News Channel is its overall usefulness. It seems like a solution looking for a problem, does anyone really care to read the news in front of the TV from a game console? It is neat, cute and innovative but that doesn't really mean anyone will care.
It is a step closer to bringing the game console into the home as a multi-purpose machine, but considering the Wii cannot play standard DVD's it will never be a home theater replacement.
