New Wii Channel: Wii World?

[James Temperton]

[xFLOAT=left]http://www.wiichat.com/wiiworld1.jpg[/xFLOAT]MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, Second Life and now PlayStation Home, the world of online social networking is growing at a huge rate.

At his recent GDC keynote address in San Francisco Shigeru Miyamoto gave us an insight into how the Mii system came to be. Dating back over ten years, the system has only finally come to light on the Wii. It is clear that this personalised approach to gaming and networking is now seen as the way forward in the gaming industry now.

Sony’s surprise announcement of Home now poses a key threat to Nintendo’s Mii system, but I think that the cute little characters might have a few tricks up their sleeves yet.

Nintendo have been hinting at an expansion to the Mii Channel for a while now. We all know they can do, so for me it is more a question of when. It is the very simplicity of the Mii system that is its biggest asset. It can be manipulated and wrapped around so many things that Nintendo can really begin to exploit it if they are clever enough. Some people have called for the Mii characters to be used in Animal Crossing, which could work very well indeed. But how about we take it on to another level?

MySpace is one of the most popular websites in the world, and love it or hate it, it is a very clever idea. If Nintendo can get around privacy and kiddy safety issues, I’m sure they could use the Wii to create some sort of Mii-centric social universe. By linking together a Mii profile to your Wii, Nintendo would be able to track the games you play, your friends, your interests and your Wii related activities. If your page was only available to people you swap Wii codes with, then it would be perfectly safe. Link in your Wii Sports age, your scores on other Wii related games and some of the Miis you have created.

[xFLOAT=left]http://www.wiichat.com/wiiworld2.jpg[/xFLOAT]If you create this all in a little Mii virtual world (similar to a very small Animal Crossing vil-lage) where you can pick up your mail, catch up with friends, perhaps play some basic games and catch up on the latest Mii news and even hang your favourite pictures from the Photo Channel on your virtual walls. Shove it all on a Wii Channel called WiiWorld or something similarly stupid and you’ve got a license to print money in console sales. Heck, they could even do some very evil in game advertising and have posters and clever product placements dotted around from time to time.

Nintendo aren’t stupid and they really do realise what makes the industry tick right now. This would be a great way to make the Mii a more personal place. They have already snagged people with the idea of the Wii, so why not expand on it and make the Wii into a tool that everyone in the family can enjoy? We all love getting mail on our Wiis, so why not get it in a little Virtual World and be able to catch up with friends and see if they want to play you online on Pokémon or Smash Bros?

Companies are trying harder and harder to try and inch their ways into our everyday lives. Nintendo have said right from the off that they want people to ‘turn on their Wii everyday’, but for me they haven’t yet given us a good enough reason. The news, weather and voting systems are all well and good, but there isn’t yet a massive opportunity to connect with other people and feel part of a network. Risky as it may be, I think Nintendo have to embrace it to move the Wii forward. Home will be a massive thing for the PlayStation and we already know how important XBOX Live has become for Microsoft, so Nintendo need to build a hub around which the Wii’s future online services will revolve. A centralised WiiWorld that links together your online persona, your friends, your online gaming and your Wii profile would be a hugely powerful tool.

Link in the Wii Shopping Channel in some way and Nintendo will finally have the Wii Channel system networked and linked together in a coherent and cohesive way. Linking together our lives has become hugely important. Being connected is essential to how we operate, so if Nintendo want people to turn on their Wii everyday, they need to make it part of this connected world. At the moment, the online system on the Wii is a major letdown.

Had it not been for the major stock market deal silencing Nintendo during the GDC they would probably have unveiled a new Wii Channel. As things stand, how the Wii will function online and bring together the great Wii community is something of a mystery. I’m just speculating on what I feel Nintendo might chose to do, but also what they have been hinting they might have in the pipeline. The Wii has a huge amount of untapped potential and I for one can’t wait to see it on show...
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[Flagel]

That would be awesome, I like the idea of a wii world, but first they would have to release some extra stuff for the actual miis themselves, so there is a greater difference in overall mii appearances.

 

[Roadrunner32]

sounds amazing

 

[con77]

i totally agree i think this is the way nintendo need to go to make online amazing
say they did create a virtual world you can set up online matches and games

please nintendo do this /\

 

[Wii_Smurf]

YEY Finally

 

[Major Tom]

That would be awsome!!!

 

[stewart01]

Miis are a good idea, but under utilised.

Nintendo needs to produce software to make them used more.

 

[WiiWouldLike2Play]

i digg it! xD

thats so cool.. nintendo should seriously do something like this.
Everyone would LOVE it!

 

[Insane Gamer Kitty]

This sounds awesome. I really like this idea and would love to see this on the Wii.

 

[Extra Life Mushroom]

I think this is a great idea. It would give Nintendo a much needed boost. They have been promising great things with the wii and we have been on the edges of our seats waiting to see what the big N has in store for us. So far the wii has been mostly a novelty. Nothing really amazing out there right now to make you want to grab one, except for the fact that they are rare right now. We've been promised alot of things, and I hope this time we won't be let down.
They really do need something truly unique or to at least put a exciting twist on an already amazing concept. They have done well with the wii shop channel. The virtual console for me and most likely many others is the main thing I love about my wii. The mii idea was neat, but when sony released their version of the idea, I think the mii concept got knocked down from a must-have innovation, to a novelty in comparison to Sony's rendition.
That being said I think there is hope if Nintendo plays their cards right. Right now the best things on the wii that I can see are the price, the welcoming remote controller, and the backwards compatibility. None of the games are truly must have killer apps, not yet at least. And as the other two systems begin to evolve, since they are made with more horsepower and processing power they can add more amazing graphics and such,also having built-in hard drives allows for more content to be saved in the machine.
Now I understand Nintendo's reasoning for their lack of hard drive: The hard drives cost a lot to mass reproduce. And that would've increased the wii's overall cost to the consumer, thus losing their edge. Not being a super-computer like the ps3, the addition of a HDD would really only contribute to the amount of ROMS and channels. The edge the wii has carved is majorly due to the price difference between the Wii and the the systems.
Since Nintendo has always been rather stingy with their online service the fact that we get an updated shop channel of great games is amazing. But would it kill them to add a free, cheaper version of the functions we enjoy so much on the other consoles?
It's nice to see that nintendo has realized that "Holy #^$% there's an internet?! Let's use it somehow.." But we won't be satisfied with simple, cutesy avatars that serve no purpose other than swapping them with other people, and that they've been added into a few games. That coupled with an impressive option to shop for your favorite nintendo games of the past. (although limited to the 512 MB of internal memory, and then how ever big your SD card is..currently 2GB is the biggest size supported. I also wonder how much of that memory do all these sysem updates and free channels take up?)
They better do something amazing, and different soon or else this valiant comeback attempt may become their last 5 minutes of fame.

 

[hexen0079]

Hell yeah thats an awsome idea they need to do it

 

[Beatle14]

Yer that would be a great idea!!!

 

[[email protected]]

i like this idea muchos.

 

[dedpoet777]

that would be really cool.

 

[wii_cammy]

brilliant