Nintendo Announces New Features on Wii

Nintendo, one of the leaders in gaming, today announced it would be kicking off the third stage of its strategy of providing features to ensure an increase in the number of players playing online games with Wii, its gaming product.

In a press conference today in Tokyo, Nintendo announced it would do this in a number of ways, one of which would be to provide more support for the online capabilities of the Wii console. This announcement was actually part of a bigger announcement that stated Monster Hunter 3, the offering from Capcom, would be available on Wii.

In another announcement, Opera announced today that Nintendo was providing users with the latest version of the company’s Internet Channel. This would be available as a free upgrade for users currently using Wii. The newest form of the Opera-powered browser would now work well with any USB keyboard, the company said.

The new browser has several user-friendly features, including a total of 56 bookmarked page slots (the new version has nine additional such page slots). It would also enable users having shared friend codes to send URLs with accompanying messages to friends, and also copy and paste information.

Besides, the new browser would also support widgets. Widgets are web-content applications that are created by users. As of now, users can avail widgets such as calendars, Internet radio stations, as well as news readers.

Nintendo announced it would also provide increased social networking features on the Wii. In keeping with this announcement, the company announced the launch today of MyWiiStory.com. This is a site that contains testimonials of users that tell how their perceptions of gaming and life in general have been altered after owning the Wii. Users would be able to write testimonials as well as share photographs and videos here.

Other new features that Nintendo announced in its press conference included enhanced functionality for the vote channel currently existing on Wii. The enhancements would include search capabilities and game rankings. Besides, Wii would also become a hub where users can download demos.

Nintendo, however, said the downloads would be available in the same form as they are found in retailer kiosks for DS. It did not say whether the downloads would be available exclusively for Wii, or also for DS. As of now, these two services are going to be available only in Japan, as has been the case with the recently launched WiiWareSupport.