The joys of your Wii Glowing Blue

One of the things I have come to love about about the wii is wondering into lounge room to find the little console glowing blue. When Nintendo announced that they would be using the WiiConnect24 service to allow updates to appear on your console 24/7. At the moment Nintendo (in my opinion) have been under utilizing this feature but getting messages from other consoles is still a little like waking up on Christmas Day.

Nintendo could have implemented this feature with a lot more touchy feely sort of stuff for this new demographic, "the non and casual gamer", they are trying to capture. They now have a targeted email address for each console owner who has connected to the WiiConnect24 system. Running a marketing campain along the lines of a "Thanks for purchasing a Wii blah blah blah. Don't forget to check out the Shopping channel for some of the great titles on our Virtual Console shopping list" wouldn't have exactly been hard to implement and would potentially increase the use of the channel. Given Nintendo's current marketing campaign (at least in Australia) very few people exposed only to the ads would be aware this service even exists. Further to this they released a new line up of titles on Friday, again this was a great opportunity to send a little WiiMail to the WiiConnect24 users (especially those who've already bought titles) letting them know there was more on the way. I think it was probably the original vision for the service but it seems to be almost forgotten. One of Miamotos original speeches highlighted the fact that a Wii owner could wake up in the morning and see the blue light glowing on their Wii and know that the developer had sent them something new. Well Nintendo... you sent me something new on Friday... where was my blue light?

I tired the console out on my Mum and Dad last night... After a lot of coaxing I got my Mum to play one match of tennis.. I was surprised that she really didn't get into it. I still think it takes about 3 matches for you to get used to the timing but Mum wasn't interested much past the first match. Dad on the other hand really got into it. Unfortunately (unlike Vanessa had assumed) we only have two wiimotes not 4 so we could only play 2 player. He played a couple of matches against me and then one against Ness. Then we moved on to Bowling which really brought out Dad's competitive streak. Getting a strike with his first bowl didn't hurt much either. By the end of the game dad was adjusting his bowling position, correcting the bowling line and putting different spins on the ball. We even managed to get some holes in golf in before they had to go... It was fairly evident that it was a struggle between going home and playing one more round. Only the fact I assured they could come over and play again got Dad to go home in the end. I think it will take a bit more work to get my Mum converted, but they Nintendo got a Mum into the DS so maybe 2 consoles in one year was too much to ask for.

I (like Ben) also got my first Wiinjury on the weekend. In a backhand in Tennis I smacked my little finger against the couch, squashing it between the Wiimote and couch, not much fun.. it's still bit sore today but I never type much with it any way so it's not too much of a hinderance.

I picked up some extra memory for the Wii on the weekend. WoW sight and sound had 1Gb SD cards for $35 which was hard to pass up, especially when there are so many great titles coming out for the Virtual Console and they haven't even started on the N64 Games yet!

One of the things that I really didn't expect out of the Wii is for it to turn me into more of a "pick up and play" casual gamer. Since I've got the Wii all I've really played is Wii Sports. I am still playing Zelda Minish Cap on the bus, but when I'm at home all I really want to do is play some more Wii Sports. It's very strange. I don't really get the urge to go into the Games stores and look for more titles at the moment. I'm not sure if it's just because it's new or if it's starting to change the way I enjoy playing games? Only time will tell....

In everything else that happened. We finally got our wedding album! It was worth the wait though the final product looks fantastic. I'm sure it will be doing the rounds with us over the Christmas holidays! Speaking of holidays our trip away up the coast is all booked and confirmed so well be spending finishing off our break with some time on Hasting St in Noosa. Hopefully I'll get some time back in the surf (or as we're in Noosa the mill pond) without making it to the news!

The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back and relaxed, we did a bit of shopping here and there, caught up on some DVDs that we've bought and haven't watched yet (2 down about 50 to go). It was a nice change to the hectic pase we've been having. I still haven't paid back all my sleep debt yet but I guess there's always time for that.