[Wii] Nintendo launches a new Wii Channel
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 02.14.2007
This is a secret to everybody!
Last night I went home and turned on my Nintendo Wii. Out of pure chance I checked out the Wii Ware section in the Shopping Channel and low and behold, I found a new addition: The Everybody Votes Channel. After downloading the channel and updating my Wii I took it for a spin. Needless to say, it's kinda quirky and kinda cool. Below are some details straight from Nintendo:
A brand new channel launches today for the Wii Menu providing a quick, easy and fun way to cast your answers to a multitude of different questions. The Everybody Votes Channel allows you to compare and contrast your opinions with those of friends, family and people from across the globe. With a regularly updated supply of new questions to ponder, this is a great way to discover not only differences between you and your family, but also between your country and others!
″If you have ever wondered whether many other people share the same opinions, preferences, likes or dislikes as you, then the Everybody Votes Channel is a quick and easy way to quell those curiosities″ says Laurent Fischer, Marketing Director, Nintendo of Europe. ″From whether people believe in aliens to what they would do if they had 1 million Euros, this quirky but addictive channel lets you find out what others think as well as being a great discussion starter with family and friends!″
Cast Your Vote
This latest addition to the Wii Menu features different general poll questions for users to answer. Three questions will always be offered. These will then closed after a week and updated with new ones. When accessing the main page of the Everybody Votes Channel, users will be greeted with the current polls open and can then register their votes by clicking on their chosen one.
Within hours of the poll closing, the latest regional results of the poll will be made available and will be displayed for each region of the relevant country. Vote ratios for each question will be displayed on the Channel using hundreds of Miis to represent the different votes.
The previous twelve polls that a player has voted on are archived so they can check back on them after they have closed. Each time a new poll closes, if the user has voted on it, it is added to the archive and the oldest one on there is deleted.
In addition to casting a vote, users can also predict the outcome of the poll. Every correct prediction will be added to the player's profile and used to calculate how tuned in they are with general public opinion, which is shown in the ″How Tuned In Are You? ″ section.
Fun For the Entire Family
Users are able to register a total of six different players on each Wii console using Mii data and names from the Mii Channel, meaning that each member of the household can have their own say on a poll. The Everybody Votes Channel records all of the votes cast by a player and allows them to check their opinions against those of their family using vote results as well as their ″How Tuned In Are You?″ results. This allows users to compare numbers of consecutive wins and overall wins versus losses recorded.
Worldwide Polls
As well as providing three different sets of general poll questions each week, the ‘Everybody Votes Channel' also features worldwide poll questions. These are set twice a month and run for approximately two weeks, with live result updates appearing just hours after the vote closes.
Miis illustrate the global vote ratio and a bar graph shows the results for each different country globally. Players can sort these results by vote percentage, country or in order of prediction accuracy.
Have Your Say
An additional feature of this channel is the ″Suggest a Question″ section, which allows players to suggest a poll topic they would like to see on the service. Each player is allowed to make up to one suggestion a day, the best of which may be converted into a poll question by Nintendo.
Everybody Votes Channel is the latest addition to the Wii Menu and can be downloaded for free from the Wii Shop Channel. The Wii Menu is the starting point for all of the console's functions and offers a gateway to a rich variety of entertainment options. When connected to a TV, the Wii Menu offers a simple interface letting users pick games to play, receive news and weather reports, view and send photos or even create playable caricatures of themselves to use in actual games. Additional functions allow users to download classic games to Wii's Virtual Console.
The download will take up roughly about 300 blocks which isn't much.
