How's the weather?
by Alisha Karabinus 
{ Dec 19th 2006 at 1:05PM }
Need to know how it is out there? Just check your Wii. The Forecast channel is now live and active for all your weather-announcing needs. Now you totally have a good reason to stay inside and throw down with some Elebits. "Look! There's a 12% chance of rain -- the Wii told me. How could I brave the outdoors?" We understand.That's not the only update excitement this week for your Wii channels, either -- this Friday, the free trial version of the Opera browser will be available for download. Next June, it'll cost five bucks, but for now, you can check out all the YTMNDs and special photos you want, from the comfort of your Wii. Ain't the Internet grand?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RupeeClock @ Dec 19th 2006 1:12PM
Free trial? You mean free download, if you download it before June you can keep it permanently for free.
wei @ Dec 19th 2006 1:19PM
Actually the site mentions that the full version will be free starting March and cost 500 points in June. Maybe this article should be revised?
Mario @ Dec 19th 2006 1:27PM
Here is the US press release:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061219/latu070.html?.v=82
Michael Kingston @ Dec 20th 2006 1:27PM
when is it launched in the UK?
RupeeClock @ Dec 19th 2006 1:53PM
Oh! So a beta version is released on the 22nd of December for free, and a fuller version in March also for free? I get ya.
20XX @ Dec 19th 2006 2:36PM
How exciting!
silkylove @ Dec 19th 2006 2:17PM
Anybody notice that you can't see the weather in Tokyo on the forecast channel right now? I don't really care because I don't live there, but it's weird that I can see the weather for the Easter Islands, but Tokyo is still a mystery :/
Smoke @ Dec 19th 2006 2:50PM
The Forecast Channel's nice, but it has a glitch. It's entirely reproducable and simple to see:
Go to the Forecast Channel, select the Globe, click the Home button, click Operations Guide, wait for it to load, and hit Home again. You should see something interesting for a brief moment.
Ron @ Dec 19th 2006 3:02PM
So why is it that in a story about the Weather channel, there is an image of what is presumably the (not yet released) news channel?
Spaz @ Dec 19th 2006 3:09PM
@ #5: Silkywood, I saw the weather in Tokyo this morning, so maybe it was just a glitch on your machine?
Pretty cool little channel to play around with, and free is always good. Now bring on the Web Browser!
Morgon @ Dec 19th 2006 3:10PM
Is anyone else's connection to the Nintendo WFC service still slow? I've been waiting for this update to complete for the past two hours.
Is speed still an issue on the WFC, or am I facing a possible local network issue or even hardware problem?
Michael Kwan @ Dec 19th 2006 3:58PM
Stupid question, but do I need to turn on my Wii for the update to happen? Because I have it all set up for WiiConnect24, and when I woke up this morning, the blue light inside the slot was pulsing, so I figured it was doing the update (which I later found out was the Forecast Channel). I'm at work now, so I can't see what's happening with my Wii.
And yes, #10, my updates have been very slow too.
James @ Dec 19th 2006 4:35PM
I downloaded it this morning, pretty cool. I like the globe looks, nice. COuld be better I guess, but I like it.
And it downloaded pretty fast for me. A few minutes.
Also, I saw tokyo also. And Easter islands...so yay me.
Skippy @ Dec 19th 2006 5:14PM
So far, all the Wii updates have required manual intervention (to click the Update button). Hopefully this can be made more automatic in the future.
And for me, at least, the update took just under a minute to download (at about 7am Pacific time)
James @ Dec 19th 2006 5:33PM
I for one hope the updates remain manual (this one definitely was -- I did it this morning). I don't want "features" pushed on me that I don't know about.
As for the Weather channel, it's pretty neat, but the load time for the browser might get irritating. It would be nice if the weather loaded in the background while the Wii was booting up. As it is, you have to click the Weather channel button (aside: for crap's sake, PLEASE allow +-pad navigation of the Channels menu), wait about 5-10 seconds for it to load, then you get to see the weather. I know it's not that long, but between the time it takes for me to turn on my TV, turn on my Wii, fix my TV input selector and aspect ratio (aside: STOCK MORE COMPONENT CABLES!!!), select the Weather channel, and wait for it to load... well, I'd be better off using my laptop. Maybe this will improve in future.
john @ Dec 19th 2006 9:45PM
so does anyone know that if the browser is the "big surprise" nintendo was talking about or if its something else?
silkylove @ Dec 20th 2006 12:41AM
OK. Well I checked again and Tokyo is up now. However, I still can't get the 5 day forecast in Nuuk, Dakar, Port Louis or the South Pole>:(
Wodeh @ Dec 20th 2006 7:17AM
The press release for the Wii version of Opera breaks in the Windows version of Opera (9.0). Could it be that Nintendo have truly mastered irony? Seriously, though, the inline scrollbar appears down the middle of the content making it both unscrollable and unreadable. Hilarity ensues!
Jeff @ Dec 20th 2006 6:25PM
By "slow," do you mean that the last time the "current" weather was updated was several hours ago for most places. And varies by city, such that it you look at a given part of the globe at 11pm, some cities will show moons and others will show the sun despite being in the same timezone?
If so, yeah, I'm having this problem too.