Nintendo reveals TV guide service for Wii
In all the excitement about the Wii's planned Virtual Console gift giving service we somehow missed another important channel announcement in Nintendo's recent graph-packed financial results briefing. The TV Program Schedule Channel will ... wait for it ... let Wii users view the TV program schedule! On their Wii!
According to the briefing, the Channel will allow for searches by genre or actor and let various members of the family register their favorite shows. "We want Wii to become a kind of a friend to the TV set in the living room," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said. "So it will be nice if people will turn on the Wii console when they want to search for interesting TV programs." Or, y'know, they could just turn on the TV and use the integrated on-screen guides included with most cable systems. Then again, we thought the Wii Forecast Channel couldn't compete with cable's Weather Channel, but we still love spinning that on-screen globe, so what do we know?
While no U.S. plans for the service were announced, the Interactive Program Guide service Nintendo is using includes U.S. data from Gemstar-TVGuide, so a domestic release seems possible. Japanese users can look forward to the service in Spring '08.
