Wii TV Guide channel available for Japanese users

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Posted Tue, 04 Mar 2008 - By Darren Calvert

There is a new channel available from the Wii Shop in Japan. Hold on to your hats! It's a TV guide which will let you share information about your favourite programmes with your Wii buddies, and Nintendo. You can even change channels on your TV with your Wiimote.

Aside from saving you a few hundred yen on TV Guides this is a bit of a waste of 135 blocks of your Wii's internal memory, but as it is free of charge we can't complain too much.

Maybe Nintendo might have bigger plans for this such channel such as an HDD/Tuner add-on to enable the Wii to actually record TV (a similar service is coming out soon for the PS3). That would be interesting, but at the moment it seems unlikely.

There are no announcements that the TV Guide channel will become available in Europe, North America or Australia. Implementing the Japanese G-Guide is one thing, but trying to support every nationalities free-to-air TV schedules seems like a bit of a tall order.

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Posted in Wii channels, Japanese releases.

Have your say about this story

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1. BF-Medic Norway 04 Mar 2008, 08:59 GMT

The japanese are so spoiled...

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2. Bass X0 United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 09:49 GMT

I'll stick with my on-screen Sky TV Guide.

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3. Kelvin United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 10:38 GMT

Yes, with the digital switchover in the UK, most people will have an online TV Guide anyway, so I'm not sure how well it would take off here.

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4. Baggypants United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 11:11 GMT

A half decent ajax website could do this job.
Or a Wii stylesheet for radiotimes.com

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5. lordbowser United States 04 Mar 2008, 11:43 GMT

I can't even remember the last time I actually watched tv. Must save precious memory for games.

6. Steve! Finland 04 Mar 2008, 12:40 GMT

Accessing the info on my MacBook or pda would probably be much faster and easier. I would try it though but I seriously doubt it would be better than what is available currently, as that is pretty good already.

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7. Bensei Austria 04 Mar 2008, 12:49 GMT

I prefer EPG, but a DVB-T Tuner or sth. would be nice if you are away on holidays.

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8. slangman United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 13:21 GMT

To me its kinda pointless. I think I'll stick to my normal TV guide. :)

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9. Roo United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 13:31 GMT

I'll just stick with the TV guide I get with the Sunday Mail. Hot Shot Hamish ftw!!!

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10. Manicfatty United States 04 Mar 2008, 16:38 GMT

I liked it better when Nintendo was a game company. Memories...

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11. Shortay-01 United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 17:00 GMT

Even though I couldn't care less about this channel, Japan do seem to be getting far too many more channels than us.

We haven't even got the Everybody's Nintendo Channel yet! :(

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12. Kenryoku_Maxis United States 04 Mar 2008, 20:25 GMT

For Japan, this is really good as they can schedule a lot of recordings with DVR and such. And, frankly, there's a lot of people doing digital recording of Anime and Dramas which are being broadcasted online which now can be tracked by this Wii service. Although they might just opt to use their online sources they've been using instead.

However yeah, I donno how well it would go in America. I actually think this service would do ok in America, kind of half and half with the 'older' (18-40 crowd) and the teenagers who are too lazy to turn on the TV and see when the Simpsons/South Park/Family Guy is on. But yeah, it would take a lot more money than we think to track all that programming.

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13. calc_nerd United States 04 Mar 2008, 21:58 GMT

Easier method: press "guide" on your regular remote. Done

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14. Atlantis1982 United States 04 Mar 2008, 22:20 GMT

Japan needs to stop releasing new channels and let the other regions to catch up. It's really retarded that the US/Europe continues to play catch-up with them.

@calc_nerd

Not everyone has a cable box, so for those that don't will like this feature.

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15. Tim Canada 04 Mar 2008, 22:53 GMT

I would be envious of this feature if there was actually anything good on TV for me to watch.

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16. Serpent United States 04 Mar 2008, 22:57 GMT

This is pointless, You can find it on the internet, tv's, newspapers and magazines..

17. ToadTheMushroom United States 05 Mar 2008, 03:02 GMT

Guys, you don't understand!

TVs in Japan don't have this type of thing, it's brand new to them!

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18. Jogurt the Yogurt Canada 05 Mar 2008, 06:03 GMT

I always did wish my Wii remote could turn my TV on and off and control my volume... Ah, the ultimate in laziness! ;)

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19. E-dawg Australia 05 Mar 2008, 06:11 GMT

Handy, but in Australia we have a cable TV service known as Foxtel Digital which has a TV guide channel selector and I only ever watch Foxtel and never free-to-air, so it doesn't bother whether we get it or not.

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20. Manicfatty United States 05 Mar 2008, 06:58 GMT

As far as a US release goes, don't hold your breath unless Nintendo does decide to include dvr-like functionality for an external hard drive. It wouldn't make any sense. It won't matter if you have cable or not next year. The US is changing over to 100% digital tv next year. With that change comes an onscreen menu with program info/schedule just like cable/dish. If you have a TV with a digital tuner already, but only use satellite or cable... try hooking up a set of 'rabbit ears' and you'll see what I mean.

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21. StarDust United States 05 Mar 2008, 07:28 GMT

One thing many Americans and Europeans may not realize is that Nintendo uses the Japanese market as guinea pigs, in order to see if something will be successful in larger world markets. There are several Famicom games that I have ordered from Japan because they were never released for the NES. Many of them are wierd or poor or have other problems, which is why they may not have been released elsewhere. Nintendo can afford a flop or two in Japan, but not worldwide. Only in the very recent past have Nintendo began releasing consoles in the US before their homeland (Wii & DS), to keep up with competition. I personally, would rather not have my Wii system memory crowded with bloatware, which I quite frankly think this is (Also the answer to why I never downloaded the internet channel - the browser cache would put too much stress on the internal memory). Many TVs, and also every satallite and cable service, have a program guide.

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22. Kelvin United Kingdom 05 Mar 2008, 08:20 GMT

ToadtheMushroom, I wondered if that was the case. Pretty much everyone has, or soon will have, a digital TV guide here in Britain, and one doesn't often think of the British being ahead of the Japanese in terms of technology! :)

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23. Manicfatty United States 05 Mar 2008, 14:46 GMT

@ToadTheMushroom - actually, that's not the case. You should check this out and even doing a search for something like 'japan digital tv onscreen guide' will yield quite a few results for you. While I was in the army, I had friends that ended up stationed in Japan. To this day they keep me informed of new tech there (one is back for another tour, and one decided to stay once he got out)...I suppose to make me jealous. But I remember before I ever saw it listed as a feature on US TVs, they were telling me about it. It wasn't exactly a glamorous feature, and not every market supported it right away.

Here's the link I refered to above - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guide_Plus

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24. Kelvin United Kingdom 05 Mar 2008, 17:38 GMT

Well, I stand corrected! Although Guide Plus is a bit different to the Freeview guides we get here.

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25. Rossi United Kingdom 06 Mar 2008, 16:55 GMT

People are saying... id rather use my sky guide... i would download this and use the sky one.. its free.. be gratefull.. I bet a feature it does hold is to prompt you when your program is about to start.

So when im into my Metroid Prine 3 game and dont realise the time and the simpsons is on.. this would be very helpfull...

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26. ChocoDK Canada 08 Mar 2008, 02:47 GMT

Well I got a PVR which has a built in T.V. guide so I am fine. But still its a cool feature.

@Rossi I love your avatar reminds me so much of when I got my SNES.

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27. XCWarrior United States 08 Mar 2008, 12:01 GMT

"11. Shortay-01 United Kingdom 04 Mar 2008, 17:00 GMT

Even though I couldn't care less about this channel, Japan do seem to be getting far too many more channels than us.

We haven't even got the Everybody's Nintendo Channel yet!"

Yeah, I want that channel too. Really wish it would get here. I could care less about this one. I know when sportscenter is on, that's all that matters.

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