aibiwashere / think4yourself / moltingredleaves / dinosaurlife
Nintendo family tree
This is like an ancestry of video game systems I’ve owned.
The Wii Internet Channel
This weekend, I finally took the plunge and purchased the Internet Channel for the Nintendo Wii.
Basically, the Internet Channel adds a web browser, powered by Opera, to the Wii, and using the Wii Remote you can enter URLs via an on-screen keyboard and surf the web. Aside from sites such as Google (which comes as a preloaded bookmark), you can also watch videos on YouTube and use Facebook (I have not done the latter, but know someone who has). My children had discovered the concept of Wii Channels, and added one for polls / surveys and another for upcoming Nintendo releases (which included video trailers). When they learned about the Internet Channel, they had been petitioning me to purchase it so they could use it (primarily for YouTube; they don’t really understand that it uses the Wi-Fi in the Wii to open up the ‘Net to them, which is fine by me). After a lot of thinking, I decided to get it (it’s only the equivalent of $5), since they mainly use the computer for YouTube and this gives us an additional machine in the house that they can use to access it (and not fight over the computer).
The limited experience with the Internet Channel is that it is decent, though I would never use the Wii as my main Internet portal. YouTube works well enough, although the video quality suffers when you select the option to view “Full Screen”; the frame rate drops, which is disappointing. Still, audio sounds fine and the children don’t mind. As the browser is running Opera, I suspect it is very capable; I’ll probably test out GMail and Facebook just for the sake of trying. Thankfully, the input method, while a little clumsy given the Wii Remote, has a competent auto-complete that recommends words as you type.
My children are digging it for YouTube, and that’s what matters. I wonder how long, however, before the novelty wears off. But, given its running Opera, there must be other uses for it. Anyone have this feature and have any suggestions?
