The Gamer's Quarter

[Cycle]

I'm gonna go check. BBS!

EDIT: It's taking about an hour to update, so I'm guessing this is it.
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[Nana Komatsu]

I had heard Saturday but that might be in the US. I'm curious who is providing news feeds for Australia!
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resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[Cycle]

I thought you were going to bed! Anyway, still updating... I'm actually still in the UK region, I should probably change back before loading this baby up for the first time.
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[Cycle]

And here it is!

Haha, when you zoom in on the channel from the menu, this cliche NEWS FLASH!!! music plays, nice touch. Now I'm waiting for the news to download, and to keep me company is a little black cat who watches my cursor move around the screen. Neat.

More coming!

Gosh, this is exciting!
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[Cycle]

Ok, so once in, some nice slightly energenic ambient music is playing in the background. The background is clearly designed to look like paper, and is the font. On the main menu you can select regional, national and international news as well as headlines for certain subjects such as science, arts and entertainment, sports, business etc.

Once you select one, a bunch of headlines come up. Click them, and on the right there will be a picture of the place where the news is coming from (a zoomed in weather globe pretty much), and on the left is the actual article. You can zoom in and out, and the letters all dance around when you do this.

So yeah, nice clean interface that still retains some fun, all in all this is pretty spiffy.
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[Cycle]

Haha, there is also a globe view. Here, zooming out will show newspapers over each city, with a number next to the name which shows how many headlines there are today. Zooming out will group the same countries papers together, so if you zoom all the way out there are these huge stacks of newspapers all over the planet (except in some countries which simply don't have many headlines).
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[Cycle]

Oh, another cool thing (I'm pretty sure this is the last thing) is the slide show feature, where a shot of the earth at the top spins around to various headlines, and the bottom screen gives the actual headline. Pressing A will stop the slideshow and put the full article up, which can be put down once read and the slideshow will continue.

Neato!
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[Cycle]

Haha, while watching the Arts & Entertainment slideshow, a review for Lost Planet on the Xbox 360 came up. Oh, the irony! Also, cool, reviews in my headlines.
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[Cycle]

One more thing! If you're reading an article from another country and money is mentioned, it will say how much it's worth in your currency in brackets. Thanks, Nintendo!
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

Do the headlines spin out of the screen? Do news stories appear on screen one letter at a time like it is being knocked out on a typewriter?
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[Cycle]

No, but that would have been cool! Well the type-writer thing would probably piss me off after five minutes, but spinning would be cool.
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

They could let you view the entire story at the press of a button when it gets on your nerves.
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[Cycle]

Or they could just let me view the entire story! I think it's a gimmick we could do without.
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

I really like my small details.
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[Cycle]

Me too, but I guess I don't like annoying gimmicks even more! Anyway, stop trying to make the news channel sound unexciting. Come on! It's news! Yeah! Woo!
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[Winged Assassins (1984)]

It would excite me.

Do you get all the news from each part of the world or just the major headlines?
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[Lestrade]

I've got it too! Oh, kitten!

The text zooming is great—fun to watch, but fast and very useful. Being able to spin the world to find regional news is a hoot, and enlightening; it actually makes me want to read more news. What fun!



It looks like each region supports the major headlines only; there seem to be quite a few per locale, though.

[Mister Toups]

my wii froze while trying to update

oh well!
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[helicopterp]

So where do the news stories come from? AP, Reuters, BBC, etc? Or are they all selected from various newspapers? Or is there some kind of news editing crew specifically for the Wii News Channel?

I guess what I'm asking is: regardless of how cool the interface is, how is the actual content?
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Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one.

[Nana Komatsu]

I know the US news channel is being provided by the AP. That made me very ;_;
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resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[Fred]

This is neat, but I can't shake the feeling that right now, somewhere in the world, Leonard Downie Jr.* is losing his shit.

[Cycle]

Oh, another thing, if you click on the cat, she'll ask you if you've found her sister in the photo channel... sounds like an easter egg hint.
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[Nana Komatsu]

I dunno, I'm not really impressed.
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resetbutton.net: videogames for unattractive people

[B coma]

Maybe the appeal is taking a break to check the news after a long bouts of gaming without having to leave the comfort of your chair/couch/bed/friend's futon?

As for the way it's implemented, it seems clean enough, but I guess it's a bummer if you don't like to get your news from AP.

[Harveyjames]

It's amazing how no matter where you go in the world, one of the main headlines is going to involve America in some way.

[Fred]

That's what hegemony is all about, baby!