Wii owners saw their slot lights glowing blue again this morning, announcing a system update from Nintendo. The message told owners they could expect Wii Shop enhancements as well as little touches to the Forecast and News channels, letting both show recent data inside their Wii Menu boxes much like the Everybody Votes Channel does.
The Wii Shop Channel recieved the biggest update—it's probably correct to call it an entirely new version of the channel. Immediately upon entering, you'll see four recommended titles based on what's new and what's popular, and you can jump directly to those titles for purchase with a single click of the Remote. Below the recommendations, a scrolling box shows recent updates in the form of news items, such as what the latest titles are or an item explaining the new features of the channel itself.
Inside the channel, you'll find a considerably snappier interface; paging through long lists of games is much faster. You can also get to the game you want via a number of new ranking and search options. In addition to the old option to list games by the system they were originally released on, you can now view the items by genre, publisher, or even search directly for the title by entering keywords in a search box.
Aside from the Wii Shop Channel, the News Channel and Forecast Channels had some minor updates; now both can show a small representation of their latest data directly on the Wii Menu itself. Unfortunately, in the case of the Forecast Channel, this seems to be mostly useless as the channel's update frequency is still way too low (at 6 a.m. this morning it was still showing 2 a.m. conditions, for example.)
The Wii Menu itself was also updated a little; it seems to come up more quickly and sports a digital clock at the bottom. (Regrettably, my personal wishlist item—being able to use the GameCube controller to navigate the Wii Menu in order to make launching GameCube titles more striaghtforward—is not part of this update.) The Message Board also got at least a minor update, highlighting the message containing the day's play history with a white envelope.
It's possible there are more features that I wasn't able to find; you may find them for yourself. To get the system update, simply go into your Message Board, open the message from Nintendo, and hit the Update button. You can also update from within the Wii's system menus.
The Wii Shop Channel recieved the biggest update—it's probably correct to call it an entirely new version of the channel. Immediately upon entering, you'll see four recommended titles based on what's new and what's popular, and you can jump directly to those titles for purchase with a single click of the Remote. Below the recommendations, a scrolling box shows recent updates in the form of news items, such as what the latest titles are or an item explaining the new features of the channel itself.
Inside the channel, you'll find a considerably snappier interface; paging through long lists of games is much faster. You can also get to the game you want via a number of new ranking and search options. In addition to the old option to list games by the system they were originally released on, you can now view the items by genre, publisher, or even search directly for the title by entering keywords in a search box.
Aside from the Wii Shop Channel, the News Channel and Forecast Channels had some minor updates; now both can show a small representation of their latest data directly on the Wii Menu itself. Unfortunately, in the case of the Forecast Channel, this seems to be mostly useless as the channel's update frequency is still way too low (at 6 a.m. this morning it was still showing 2 a.m. conditions, for example.)
The Wii Menu itself was also updated a little; it seems to come up more quickly and sports a digital clock at the bottom. (Regrettably, my personal wishlist item—being able to use the GameCube controller to navigate the Wii Menu in order to make launching GameCube titles more striaghtforward—is not part of this update.) The Message Board also got at least a minor update, highlighting the message containing the day's play history with a white envelope.
It's possible there are more features that I wasn't able to find; you may find them for yourself. To get the system update, simply go into your Message Board, open the message from Nintendo, and hit the Update button. You can also update from within the Wii's system menus.