The Forecast Channel Has Gone Live Today!

Shred

Morning All,

Woke up this morning to find a message waiting from the big N wishing me a happy christmas (well holidays!) and letting me know the forecast channel has gone live today:D I ran the update (which took about 1-2 minutes) and hey presto! I have to say I'm impressed, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Wihoo, rolll on the teh interweb & news channels now!

Star Lord

Nice one, must do that update when I get home this evening!
Been looking forward to this one as it looks pretty damn cool from the previews I saw of it.

ADSLUSER

Yes, noticed my Wii flashing it's blue lighting this morning and once I updated, the cool weather channel was active!! Nice one Nintendo

whitetrash

I thought the channel preview on the wii menu was going to have little icons to show the current weather but no, it just says "forecast channel". Still pretty good though. Globe mode is pretty good.

Gizzle

So THAT'S why my Wii glowed and woke me up this morning. I thought they were sending me a happy birthday message! As an aside, I can't believe the blue light actually throbs...

Star Lord

Gizzle wrote:

I can't believe the blue light actually throbs...

That's the best thing about the blue light!!!

Goodshape

Aye, caught the blue light this morning. Forecast Channel seems pretty cool - interface not as smooth as I had hoped for (looks great, but can be tricky to spin the globe without selecting a place by accident for example. They could have used the B button for one of those actions) but I wasn't expecting a full five day forecast.

And it's even got Buncrana on there (town in Donegal I'm from).

I heard somewhere that we're getting the web browser on the 23rd, any truth in that? Really looking forward to it. If I can watch Google Video / YouTube / etc. on the Wii, I may never switch over to TV again.

AceCard Jones

Apparently we are getting the browser on the 23rd.
I have read it's definite on a few places and lot's of people here seem to agree so we'll see I suppose.Anyway I'm going to run the update now.
Thanks for the info Shred.

***EDIT***

Ok I had no message telling me about this.
But when I connected to the internet for the update it was there.
Maybe it's because I don't have Wii connect 24 on while on standby.

Niall0

cool must check that out when i get home tomorrow

Star Lord

AceCard Jones wrote:

Ok I had no message telling me about this.
But when I connected to the internet for the update it was there.
Maybe it's because I don't have Wii connect 24 on while on standby.

Yeah, you won't receive the message about it if Wii connect 24 isn't on, as it obviously can't get the message!
On the plus side, it uses a little less power, on the negative side, you'll never get the glowing blue light...

Shred

whitetrash wrote:

I thought the channel preview on the wii menu was going to have little icons to show the current weather but no, it just says "forecast channel".

Maybe that will require Flash which the Opera browser supports (it's looking more and more likely that it will be launched in Beta form this Saturday going by news stories across the web)?

Acecard, I'd say it most defintely is because you have Wii connect 24 turned off that you didn't get the message.

AceCard Jones

No I have it turned on you see.Just not when it' on standby.
So by rights it should have told me when I turned the machine on but it didn't.
In settings I have Wii connect 24 on, but under the standby section I had it off.
(now on)

But I'm still going to leave the console plugged out 80% of the time I'm not using it.I explained why in a different topic and am too lazy to type again or copy and paste.:D

But back to the weather channel.It's pretty good.I didn't go to in depth but it's pretty fun.

Luluk

Must say I'm very impressed with the Forecast Channel. I agree however that they need to make it easier to navigate across the globe. They could use the combined A+B buttons like in the Mii Parade, perhaps. Otherwise tis very nice indeed.

I also see that Columns from the Megadrive has been added to the Virtual Console games. I used to be so addicted to that game back in the day. Cool.

Can't wait for the web browser to launch.

donkey 2002

Anyone any idea about when the news channel will be up?

The Free Man

im impressed, wow theres plenty of places in ireland eh!

Goodshape

donkey 2002 wrote:

Anyone any idea about when the news channel will be up?

January 27th, according to this

Shred

donkey 2002 wrote:

Anyone any idea about when the news channel will be up?

I've seen it mentioned in a number of places that it won't be until the end of January (the 27th to be precise).

Star Lord

Internet available on Friday...
http://wii.ign.com/articles/751/751583p1.html

Only a beta, but the proper one, when released in March, will only be 500 points. HELL of a lot cheaper than the DS browser!!!

Shred

DamoElDiablo wrote:

Internet available on Friday...
http://wii.ign.com/articles/751/751583p1.html

Only a beta, but the proper one, when released in March, will only be 500 points. HELL of a lot cheaper than the DS browser!!!

Excellent!

whitetrash

Hmm, I thought it was free before June as in anybody who got it before then got it for free. Especially considering opera's free on the pc now. Oh well, a fiver aint that much. Hopefully the star points / nintendo points will have joined together by then!

Shred

From the posted article: "As previously promised, the Internet Channel will be free to all Wii users until the end of June 2007, after which it'll set you back a measly 500 Wii Points."

I'm not sure where Damo got the bit about March from though

Star Lord

Sorry, I meant June... :rolleyes:

Star Lord

wii.ign.com wrote:

the trial version of Opera's Wii-specific browser is set to make way for a final version of the software next March. As previously promised, the Internet Channel will be free to all Wii users until the end of June 2007, after which it'll set you back a measly 500 Wii Points.

I got confused between the final version being available in March and being available to buy after the end of June

Shred

DamoElDiablo wrote:

I got confused between the final version being available in March and being available to buy after the end of June

Pffft...tut tut:p

Rhyme

It's cold at the North Pole today.

...ah ha, my camera memory card works on the Wii, pity i only took one photo of Smyths on launch day

scrapland

Have ye noticed.

Ireland has 32 places listed.

UK has 5 (excluding Belfast)
France has 4 or 5

What's that about ? Do we care more about the weather than most of the other places in europe ?

evad_lhorg

oh so thats what the blue light does. i noticed it this morning and i thought somethin was wrong.

Rhyme

scrapland wrote:

What's that about ? Do we care more about the weather than most of the other places in europe ?

maybe it's easier/cheaper to detect and display crap weather.

Goodshape

scrapland wrote:

Have ye noticed.

Ireland has 32 places listed.

UK has 5 (excluding Belfast)
France has 4 or 5

What's that about ? Do we care more about the weather than most of the other places in europe ?

It's because you've chosen Ireland as your home country. Eurogamer actually mentioned that Ireland had dreadful coverage. Only Dublin gets listed for them, while England is extensively covered.

Bit of a shame we don't get full and complete world-wide coverage. I assume it's to lessen the strain on the server.