N-Philes

The first page of my Wii Menu contains eight elementary channels that no Wii should be without: Disk Channel (if that even qualifies as a real channel), Mii Channel, Photo Channel, Wii Shop Channel, Forecast Channel, News Channel, Internet Channel (Beta), and Everybody Votes Channel. Twelve spaces minus the eight that I'm using leaves four completely empty channels. Because of my slight streak of obsessive compulsiveness, I've grouped my nine Virtual Console downloads together on the second page.

I've read many articles from many other gaming sites, both big and small, about what kinds of channels they would like to see pop up. To be honest, I haven't been greatly inspired by my fellow writer's ideas on how to fill up the rest of my channels, so I've thought long and hard about what I would produce if I were given unlimited sway in Kyoto. And while it's not likely that I'll ever speak to Miyamoto, let alone boss him around, I can dream.

But first, I must protest a popular choice for a future channel. A Stock Channel is a terrible idea. Given how slow Wii has proven to update the weather, to send messages, and to add friends, stock quotes could be hours behind, which like weather, isn't particularly useful. Not to mention, there's no spinning globe to distract you from that gact. Also, such information would be useful mostly during trading hours, when people who have stocks are probably at work, or at least nowhere near a Wii. There's only one reason why I wouldn't mind a Stock Channel, and that i because Nintendo has experimented with delivering live stock updates through their hardware. On the Famicom. It would be like a full circle of Nintendo experimentation.

The Everybody Votes channel confused many people when it launched because it was completely unexpected. Everyone and their grandmothers were so focused on the obvious DS Download, Wii Demo, and Digitally-Distributed Game Channels that it seemed to come from out of the ballpark, let alone from left field. While the Everybody Votes Channel seems trivial, I believe that it's a small part of a grand vision. It's from here where many of my ideas stem.

I will take you through several channel ideas that would be great on Wii, at least in theory. If you work at Nintendo, feel free to forward this to Miyamoto-san.

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