Nintendo's ultra-popular Wii gaming console is a piece of hardware that, out of the box, is designed to do more than play games. The Wii comes a number of "channels" that aren't related to video games. These serve as dedicated portals for a few different media formats. It's worthwhile to note that the Channels attach themselves to the familiar namesake of television while behaving more like Internet sites. The Photo Channel assumes that the Wii is the kind of thing a person might have in their living room and would turn on to share their photos friends and family. The presence of the Forecast Channel suggests that the designers at Nintendo wanted the Wii to be the kind of hardware that people turn on in the morning like they would sit down at a computer. The same can be inferred by the News Channel, which was added a couple of months after the Wii's launch and was clearly a part of their original design plan for Channels. Nintendo did not just want a media hub like the video and audio streaming Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but rather they sought to encourage people to integrate play into their daily habits and their daily habits into play.
I must admit that as a regular game player more interested in a console with
great games than multi-faceted software, the News Channel put me off. I
assumed that because I had a computer with a world of information at my
fingertips that there was no need for a News Channel in my life.
However, as I've become more fond of convergence devices (my iPhone is
yours if you can pry it from my cold dead hands) I have actually grown
an appreciation for what the News Channel is trying to do.
The News Channel is actually quite a pleasurable experience that stands apart from other methods of news delivery. For one, it isn't plastered with overlays, scrolling graphics, and ads. Instead, it uses large fonts, minimal colors, and plays a typical soothing Wii tune while browsing. The opening screen is a menu of "sections" as seen in print newspapers and print-emulating websites. These sections include national news, international news, sports, arts/entertainment, business, science/health, and technology. Selecting a section brings up a list of headlines, clicking on a headline brings up an AP story taking up 3/4 of the screen and a satellite image of the globe flashing the related location. The user (player?) can increase or decrease the font size, which is rendered nicely for high-def televisions, go back to the list of headlines, or choose to use the globe as an interface for browsing stories by location.
Browsing in the Globe view is one of the more satisfying experiences on the Wii. You can use the hand icon to click on a part of the Earth and drag/pull the planet around. There is a nice tactile feeling associated with this action and I dare anyone not to spin the planet around like they did a globe back in elementary school. News events show up on the map as either little newspaper icons or as photos pulled from the stories. Clicking on them brings up a list of regional headlines. You can also zoom in and out on the map to refine regions. When I zoomed out as far as I could I noticed that almost all the United States stories get lumped into "Chicago Area", but rotating it a bit causes "Chicago" stories to be populated in a US city more close to the center of my television. This seemingly insignifcant sorting algorithm actually illustrates the complicated nature of geocentric news.
While certainlly not a news game, the News Channel is one of the best examples available of a gaming company thinking about how a game platform can be used to deliver information. Had this just been a series of menus and some multimedia, it would have been disappointing. Instead, it makes good use of the Wiis pointing and motion controls and presents the news in a simple and appealing way.
The News Channel is actually quite a pleasurable experience that stands apart from other methods of news delivery. For one, it isn't plastered with overlays, scrolling graphics, and ads. Instead, it uses large fonts, minimal colors, and plays a typical soothing Wii tune while browsing. The opening screen is a menu of "sections" as seen in print newspapers and print-emulating websites. These sections include national news, international news, sports, arts/entertainment, business, science/health, and technology. Selecting a section brings up a list of headlines, clicking on a headline brings up an AP story taking up 3/4 of the screen and a satellite image of the globe flashing the related location. The user (player?) can increase or decrease the font size, which is rendered nicely for high-def televisions, go back to the list of headlines, or choose to use the globe as an interface for browsing stories by location.
Browsing in the Globe view is one of the more satisfying experiences on the Wii. You can use the hand icon to click on a part of the Earth and drag/pull the planet around. There is a nice tactile feeling associated with this action and I dare anyone not to spin the planet around like they did a globe back in elementary school. News events show up on the map as either little newspaper icons or as photos pulled from the stories. Clicking on them brings up a list of regional headlines. You can also zoom in and out on the map to refine regions. When I zoomed out as far as I could I noticed that almost all the United States stories get lumped into "Chicago Area", but rotating it a bit causes "Chicago" stories to be populated in a US city more close to the center of my television. This seemingly insignifcant sorting algorithm actually illustrates the complicated nature of geocentric news.
While certainlly not a news game, the News Channel is one of the best examples available of a gaming company thinking about how a game platform can be used to deliver information. Had this just been a series of menus and some multimedia, it would have been disappointing. Instead, it makes good use of the Wiis pointing and motion controls and presents the news in a simple and appealing way.
Good post summing up the affordances of the Wii News Channel.
It should be noted that the News and Forecast Channel launched very quickly (if not concurrently with the console) in Japan and the few months delay for the release here was due to contractual negotiations with the AP to get the News channel up and running in the States.
And, very tangentially, it should be noted that touching the cat that sits on top of the news bar is very soothing.
I had a lot of fun with this feature when it came out. It's a great reach to Wii users, especially the ever growing "casual" userbase who might not understand or be comfortable with an RSS reader on their phone or computer, but can understand the clean and intuitive interface you've so well described. The design of "channels" - big buttons on a single menu - also works along the same line of thinking, instead of trying to organize and features into something that takes more getting used to (xmb, dashboard).
Honestly, the biggest problem here is actually getting the beforementioned "casual" wii userbase to hook their damn consoles up to the internet. I would guess a tremendous amount of wii users don't know the thing has wireless capabilities, and even if they did, hooking it up to a wireless network is buried in the system menu, and especially if you don't have a completely open home wireless network, is difficult to make work.
If Nintendo is in fact serious about using the internet in ways like this - news, weather, photos, chat - they need to include with their console easy to follow instructions highlighting the feature, or in some way educate the mass userbase that their $250 machine does more than let you bowl and practice yoga.
That looks pretty cool but I don't really see the point in turning on your wii to check the news when there are more convenient sources like cnn, smart phones, or the internet.
I suppose it's a pretty good idea in some senses as if you're on your Wii, and can't be bothered to turn on your PC to check the news, then you could just click on this from your Wii Menu. However, I'd rather check something else than the Wii News, as you don't really know how reliable it's going to be!
But, being the cheapest console at the minute, it seems to have the most features on it so far!
Interesting and informative article, thanks - just wonder why the Wii has been stretched in this way in the first place? Surely there are far better ways to consume newsbites and surely thee are more appropriate add-ons to give to a games console than a newsreader in the first place. Or are they going to end up turning video games systems into libraries instead of consoles maybe? (In short - Everything has its place - games in one place and news in another imho)