Nintendo Channel Finally Comes to Europe

Cool Beans.

Freakin' Sweet. I have been hanging out for this sucker since the Jap launch.
I'm gonna try out all the demos, even the ones I own, then I'm gonna watch all the Shigeru interviews, then the Satora ones, then all the game previews, and then... ummm ..?
Well I guess thats it, but SWEET!!!!

Hey wait? its already 2am Friday.... What the hell? No blue light presents.
It better come through before I go to work.

YEAAAAHHHH

@Everyone
Sorry to burst your bubble, but its a waste of space. 244 blocks (including save data) and you'll probably use it for like a week,

Actually, it's a very cool channel. My wife won't watch videos online and this is a great way for her to check out the new Wii games that we are interested in.

I hope there will be VC and Wii Ware games too!!

How is Nintendo making money off of this, they don't care about cash, otherwise they'd charge Wiis at $400 like everything expensive-ass console!!

The information gathering is, first off, optional, and secondly, is there to ensure that you're allowed to rate the games (you must have played the game for at least an hour first), and to suggest titles that match your preferences.

If you're really paranoid that they're using it for more "sinister" means, there's a nice fat OFF switch that you can hit, and all your problems are solved.

I always use the game reccomendation feature. You must play or use a channel for over an hour. But I don't know what they do with the info. I thought they would let users acess the information. I can't find it though. If anyone knows please share.

And you can view Virtual Console and Wii ware videos through the Nintendo Channel. They have not put up any new VC games in a while

Information about game recomendation is hidden from users. Most likely publishers can buy into that info (I'm sure they would be interested to see how long customs play their games for).

As for the Nintendo data. Its for improving the Wii experiance. Things like connection speed, Number of Wii remotes and number of free blocks* help give them ideas about their customers (and what they can sell to them ).
*-If you whine about the storage problem but don't use the channel (even just once) this point makes you part of the problem.

Part of signing up to the information exchange is no personally identifyable infomation will be collected or shared.

It is a little lame you can't get the DS demos without opting in...but I can see why they did it.

kool i hadn't even heard of it :S

The Nintendo Channel has pretty much been a bust for me. I don't have the patience to wait for the videos to download. I get 9 seconds of video than I wait up to a minute or more for another 9 seconds to download. That's no way to watch a video. Maybe the wireless link is weak/bad but everything else (Internet Channel, Wii Shop and all of my Tivos) seems to have no problem with the WiFi connection.

Oh crap, my router isn't supported or found by my DS, making the demo downloads useless. Oh well.

Just 3 Hours to go, i hope the DS Downloads aren't disapointing.

Don't get too excited about it.

The demos are good, but they need more.

"Oh crap, my router isn't supported or found by my DS, making the demo downloads useless. Oh well."

What does your router have to do with anything?!

The Wii transfers the demos to your DS in the exact same way that another DS would transfer a single-cartridge game -- over a local-area network using their own protocol. Your router should not be involved, except to get the demo from the Internet to your Wii. (Which, if you could even download the Nintendo channel, obviously is working for you)

The Nintendo Channel isn't bad; it's just not the 'next big thing' some people were hoping for.

The channel is fine, but I was expecting more DS demos and exclusive videos. I didn't see any problems so far with loading though, I'm not sure why you have that problem, kimbeattie.

@Ian
That's right. If it provided demos of Wii, VC, Wiiware somehow then it'd be worth the space.
@Starwolf
I hadn't even thought of them using it to see how much space you have. That'd be great. Hope they do somethign about it then.

No Nintendo Channel yet. It's 0:33 AM.

I would be at least give this a go .
The only trouble is deciding what to delete .
NINTENDO PLEASE LET US RUN SOFTWARE OF SD CARDS OR ELSE I KIDNAP IWATA HIMSELF . lol .
At least i got my frustration out as the storage issue cought up with me a week & a half ago even thru i did realise the lack of storage space is a problem .

Waxxy: thanks for clearing that up. I assumed they wouldn't connect through their own protocol, and I wouldn't know anyway because I've not played multi-player DS with a single cartridge.

@Terranigma

Nope, I have check it now, but still nothing yet.

I'm going to sleep now it's 2:23 am in the morning

I just checked in the shop channel a moment ago only to find its not there only 3 Virtual Console titles One of i got a physical copy .

Bet you guys are stoked? I love the Ninty Channel.

Finally here .
Yah.

The recommendation stuff they have to gather it for a few weeks before it shows results in the find titles search thing.

Also the data that Nintendo collects is stuff like how many blocks you have. Wheter you have the remote speaker on, what volume. There is a frigging page on Nintendo.com that explains the details on what they do collect and what they don't. It's nothing more then Amazon, ebay millions of other web sites collect. It's marketing stuff pure and simple. You have to agree to it and once you do on this meaningless data you get access to DS demos. They have to justify the bandwidth and the data is the justification price. Grow up and learn how the real world works.

Wiiware and vc games are indeed shown on the Nintendo Channel or often times in the back catalog area. Click the tag at the top of the channel. That takes you to the search games function. One of the search options is for videos. More and more videos are added all the time. Also the games you can recommened list also grows since more and more publishers are having their games added to the database.

They will never do vc demos due to the horrible data that Microsoft revealed on how demos kill 99% of xbox live arcade sales.

Only one out of six demos downloads to a sale. Five million paid downloads in two years and Nintendo outsells xbox live arcade each month by several hundred thousand.

No one is going to allow demo downloads on impulse price items because the demos would nullify the impulse.

"The Nintendo Channel has pretty much been a bust for me. I don't have the patience to wait for the videos to download. I get 9 seconds of video than I wait up to a minute or more for another 9 seconds to download. That's no way to watch a video. Maybe the wireless link is weak/bad but everything else (Internet Channel, Wii Shop and all of my Tivos) seems to have no problem with the WiFi connection."

Do you not know how bandwidth works? Everything in Europe is hitting the channel of course it is going to be slow for the first week or two. Part of the opt in data purpose is to determine how fast you are downloading the videos so they can use said data to improve the bandwidth so videos get downloaded faster as the months go on.

"...Part of the opt in data purpose is to determine how fast you are downloading the videos so they can use said data to improve the bandwidth...." (sailingtheseaoffools)

There is a simple formula for improving bandwidth that doesn't involve calculating 'opt in data' to ensure smooth video play back and I will be kind enough to share it with you. Brace your self because you will not believe how simple it is. Well here it is, Formula: More is Better.

Lets be serious for a minute. The year is 2008 unless I am out of sync again with the present time factor. This isn't the beginning of streaming media over the Internet. Its the servers job to give as fast as the receiver can take. If Nintendo needs that data to figure out how fast to stream content then they are definitively living before the year 1995 and rediscovering the wheel, where ever they happen to be.

Are you working for Nintendo and or trying to promote 'opt in data', perchance? Or perhaps you are simply sailing with Nintendo over the same sea of whom's name is contained within your own. Nintendo should have servers in all continents instead of having all continents leaching from one. There shouldn't be a problem with Europeans slowing down Americans or in any other possible combination including the Asians. If they can't handle launch week then what makes you think they will be able to handle a larger install base weeks from now when the community's growth expedites at the selling rate of wii systems?

The simple answer is that Nintendo is light years behind when it comes to Internet technology, amongst other things, whether you choose to accept it or not.

I just downloaded this from the Shop Channel, along with FF. I was left with 93 blocks, so I got rid of Pokémon Snap, Super Mario 64, DKC, Super Metroid and ALttP. I rarely play these games anymore anyway...

But, uh... the DS demo selection is pretty weak when compared to the North American demos. Mario Kart? Brain Training? Sight Training? Maths Training? I'm not saying these games are bad... but we could have used a bit more variety. Where's mah Cooking Mama 2?

"There is a simple formula for improving bandwidth that doesn't involve calculating 'opt in data' to ensure smooth video play back and I will be kind enough to share it with you. Brace your self because you will not believe how simple it is. Well here it is, Formula: More is Better."

Funny how MMOs suffer the same issues even with millions spent on servers to prepare for the launch week with just one hundred thousand people logging in. Funny how Itunes and other sites with megabandwidths shut down when millions of log in attempts occur after Christmass when people get ipod songs.

MMOs and other internet providers use data that people send usually automatically to try to get rid of the bottlenecks.

You still believe that crap that hard drives will no longer be in pc's in five years because due to the internet we would be able to access everything said internet? That was said ten years ago. Obviously you haven't heard there are enourmous issues with the web running out space that there are serious issues with speed. Hence why companies want bandwidth caps on usage because the network is being overtaxed.

"Mario Kart? Brain Training? Sight Training? Maths Training? I'm not saying these games are bad"

Blame Euro publishers. Even the US Nintendo Channel had far more videos and third party game listings on both the video archive, game listing archive, on successive weeks. Publishers have to sign up.

This also occured with the Nintendo Channel in Japan.

7 DS demo's and 6 are from casual games

I have downloaded the channel and thinking of deleting it already. Complete waste of space!

In Germany we've got just 5 DS-Demos .
Which demos were in the US available at launch?

Well it wasn't available for download at 12am sharp but I checked back at 2am and there it was. It wasn't worth the wait but oh well at least I got to watch The Graduate in that time

yay, finally we the nintendo channel. its alright i suppose. needs more content though, however it is early days so lets see what happens.
really like the ds demo download feature, although they could of given us some more interesting choices

No wiiware this week? What gives!

Although I was looking forward to it, if this was the excuse not to release any WiiWare games in Europe today I'm going to be very annoyed at NoE!

@DEMON212

I got Nintendo Channel
meeen we got only 2 demos for download to DS

"7 DS demo's and 6 are from casual games "

Only 2 here... :S

That's odd...

Seven DS demos for the United Kindom.
Four for Australia.
Two for the Netherlands.

Pray tell, DEMON, what games did you get, exactly?

We got Big Brain Academy and DR. Kawashima's BRAIN TRAINING for DS-downloadservice. Why Nintendo do not send all the demos to everyonce. Nintendo must put de demos on their server and let everybody download them, why those separtion. Sorry for my bad english. Hope you guys understand.

Well, we're talking about NoE of course it does not make sense.

@Bluezealand

What does that mean NoE?

Nintendo of Europe

Slight technical here, its NOE. NOE themselves call it that (see game creditis you'll usually see something like "NOE testing staff").

So I take it nobody noticed the fact our Wii Fit interview was subtitled while America got dubs in English, French and Spanish.

Also watching the How to buy WiiWare video (can't remember its name) NOE made a mistake in their test server (which they presumebly used to make the video):

Whatever "WA2P-0.1 for NOE 04/25/08" is one thing is clear. It should not have been there. I wonder what it actually is and why does it use the American dating system?

I've had no problems with the channel. A bit lacking in videos and Wii Shop games (seriously the last ones on there when I checked were from April) but the only speed issue I had was when I paused a video for a few minutes and came back and it was buffering on me (guess the cache decided to delete itself).

Seriously I'm pleased its not rubbishly slow like the Wii Shop and Everybody Votes are (thank goodness Nintendo learned about dedicated servers after those two...).

Everybody votes is fast for me. So is the shop channel. Check your router settings.

The Wii Fit inteview in America was dubbed in English due to he who speaks for Miyamoto aka Bill Trennier.

@Everyone wanting to know
US got around 8 demos at launch, incuding titles like Ninja Gaiden DS, Brain Age 2, and Jam Sessions. (Thats all I can remember.) To everyone complaining that there isnt much there: that's the point we Us-ians have been making. But it does update once a week (after VC and Wiiware updates.) But dont expect too much.

@Bluezealand said:
Nintendo of Europe

Oke thanks, I understand