Nintendo Channel Coming to U.S.




Posted by Alastor

[quote]Nintendo of America will launch a Wii channel that offers downloadable DS titles and information about the company's games when WiiWare rolls out in the United States next month.

Some features of the Nintendo Channel, which was released in Japan last year (see screenshot, right), will be integrated with the games-on-demand service, WiiWare.

[quote]In Japan, where the channel was released last November, it offers streaming web video with content such as interviews with Wii game designers. In one video feature, Nintendo legend Shigeru Miyamoto describes the company's upcoming exercise game, Wii Fit.

The Nintendo Channel dishes out lists of upcoming games for the Wii and Nintendo DS, which users can sort by release date, publisher, genre, etc. It also allows players to download demo versions of games for the portable Nintendo DS: The Wii beams the game demos to the DS wirelessly, and the demos stay on the DS until it is shut off.

This is only about half the article. They've got a video of the channel in action, too.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/nintendo-channe.html

Glad to see this finally making it outside Japan. Downloadable DS demos? Hell yeah, sign me up.




Posted by WillisGreeny

I wonder if the new Castlevania will become a downloadable demo in the future.




Posted by Speedfreak


Quoted post: Some features of the Nintendo Channel, which was released in Japan last year (see screenshot, right), will be integrated with the games-on-demand service, WiiWare.
For instance, if a user has played a WiiWare game for at least an hour, they will be able to review the game on the Nintendo Channel, said Cammie Dunaway (pictured, below), Nintendo of America's executive vice president, during a meeting with Wired.com editors Wednesday afternoon. The reviews will be available for other Wii owners to read.
Since Nintendo won't provide free demo versions of WiiWare games, the Nintendo Channel is how customers will be able to get a feel for games to help them make purchasing decisions, said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime.




I can see this going very very wrong, how are they going to censor reviews? Will they even bother and just let people say pretty much anything like on amazon? Could reviews get rated so only the most popular one is pushed to the top? Nevertheless, it's a nice effort.



Posted by Breakman

now what'd be nice would be wii demos since it's, you know, a wii channel

but still, it's really awesome to see them finally come forward with some more interesting channels--and, at last, wiiware




Posted by David M. Awesome

Considering how lame most of the other channels are, this one is pretty **** great.

I still need to get a Wii, though.




Posted by Alastor


Quoting Breakman: now what'd be nice would be wii demos since it's, you know, a wii channel


Wii demos would be a lot bigger than DS ones, though.

Where's my Wii Hard Drive, Nintendo?



Posted by David M. Awesome

[quote=Alastor;842560]Wii demos would be a lot bigger than DS ones, though.

Where's my Wii Hard Drive, Nintendo?

They could just make the Wii demos shorter or something... though the hard drive would pretty much solve that problem anyways.




Posted by Alastor

If they're going to do Wii demos, I want a hard drive. This "it only stays on your system as long as the power is on" is fine for DS games, but considering the difference in file size, I'd want to keep Wii demos.




Posted by Speedfreak

Nintendo don't really do demos, they don't like handing out unfinished code. Plus it adds to development time and makes them polish the game slap bang in the middle of development.




Posted by Alastor

I just want demos of stuff that's finished so I can know if I like it or not before I buy it (don't have an account at any local rental places yet, plus demos are free). I can wait for anything else.




Posted by Alastor

Nintendo Channel's out. Seems very nice.




Posted by Ant

I LIKE IT! Downloaded the Ninja Gaiden and Brain Age 2 demos.




Posted by Alastor

I tried Jam Sessions (thinking it'd be more like EBA, but it's nothing like it) and Flash Focus. Figure I'll try everything else sooner or later. I just hope some more third party demos come out in the future. I would've liked a demo for The World Ends With You, really.




Posted by Prince Shondronai

Haven't been able to download it yet. They must have fewer servers in the midwest, or something. Half the time I try to do something, they're overloaded and I can't get a connection or at least a connection solid enough to download much.




Posted by Alastor

I haven't had a single problem with it yet. Works like a charm.

I just wish I could figure out if it's possible to forward/rewind through videos. I watched like 5 minutes of that Shigeru Miyamoto interview, accidentally backed out of it, then didn't feel like watching all that again.




Posted by Zelda_Guy


Quoting Alastor: I just wish I could figure out if it's possible to forward/rewind through videos. I watched like 5 minutes of that Shigeru Miyamoto interview, accidentally backed out of it, then didn't feel like watching all that again.


You can just press B when your in big view!



Posted by Synth2012

I got my router and my Wii to be friends again, yay! I'm enjoying the Nintendo Channel. I like the little voting thing. I get to click on the little female icon. HAHA!




Posted by Alastor


Quoting Zelda_Guy: You can just press B when your in big view!


Yeah, thanks. Works in normal view and fullscreen. I tinkered with the channel when I first got the message at about 6:30 AM the other day, and couldn't figure it out.

The "reviews" thing is... very different than what I expected. It's more of a... "voting" system than it is a review system. Only allowing you to rate/recommend /whatever the games you've played on your Wii is a nice way to cut back trolling.



Posted by Vampiro V. Empire


Quoted post: Nintendo don't really do demos, they don't like handing out unfinished code. Plus it adds to development time and makes them polish the game slap bang in the middle of development.


They can throw a demo together after the game ships or goes gold no problem. There's no reason it should inconvenience the developers and no reason it should be made of unfinished code. I think XBL has proven to some degree demos are a very good thing. Assuming, of course, the game is actually, you know, good. Otherwise the developers just ***** and complain.



Posted by Zelda_Guy

New videos up and new Demos!!!




Posted by Alastor

Updates every Monday, doesn't it? Thought I read that in the walls of text when I downloaded it.




Posted by Zelda_Guy

ok that makes sence with VC and WW and all.




Posted by Alastor

Yeah, I'm almost certain it'll update every Monday. Those new demos they put up are all being taken down on the 18th, which is Sunday.




Posted by WillisGreeny

What!?! they take down demos?! :(




Posted by Alastor

Only certain ones (mostly third party), like Apollo Justice. Ones like Brain Age (and other ones pandered entirely to more casual folk) seem to stay up indefinitely.




Posted by Speedfreak

[quote=Vampiro V. Empire;845588]They can throw a demo together after the game ships or goes gold no problem. There's no reason it should inconvenience the developers and no reason it should be made of unfinished code. I think XBL has proven to some degree demos are a very good thing. Assuming, of course, the game is actually, you know, good. Otherwise the developers just ***** and complain.

Oh I agree, I'm talking about mid-dev demos in this instance. I can't say I've ever had a huge amount of trouble buying games for any platform without demos, though. I hardly ever play demos because they tend to demo the gameplay pretty poorly.




Posted by Bebop

Dead Rising as example. The demo focuses just on State of Emergency style play and as a possible consumer was led to be beleive thats what the game was going to play like. It's quite suprising how some games can be completly different to their demo.




Posted by Vampiro V. Empire

Yet, that's the only demo I can think of that did that. The rest were pretty great representations of the final game, whether good or bad.




Posted by WillisGreeny

I don't think the DS demos are that misleading. For example, I doubt the gameplay in the Ninja Gaiden demo will be greatly different than the full game, taking into consideration the final game will have more abilities and different enemies. For every one demo that completely bull ****s the audience, there's 4 more that are accurate.




Posted by Proto Man

Yeah this is pretty cool being able to d/l DS demos at home. Means I don't have to go to GameStop or Target. Although I can only do this at my little bro's house, he has a Wii and I don't yet. :(

I like seeing the commercials and info on the games too. Now they need to release content like they did when they made that DKC promo video!