Nintendo has updated the official Wii site, unveiling a new part of the
Iwata Asks series of roundtable interviews conducted by Nintendo CEO
and President Satoru Iwata with the research and development team
behind the Wii. In this update, entitled "Wii as a Shared Space for the
Entire Family," Iwata and the development team revealed new information
on the Wii Message Board.
"At its most basic, it is a place you
can write memos," said Shinichiro Tamaki. "For instance, a mother might
simply stick a message like 'The snacks are over there!' onto the Wii
Message Board. It's basically like sticking a message on the door of
the fridge."
While messages can be used for basic
communication, the message board system will also have integrated
functionality with various Wii games. "For example, if you're playing
Animal Crossing, a message like 'Concert next Saturday in town' will
automatically be posted on the Message Board. The user doesn't even
have to be playing the game," Tamaki noted. "Or take a game like 'Brain
Training.' You could post your results on the Message Board: 'Today,
your brain age is 50!'
"I envision the Message Board helping
everyone in the family communicate with each other," continued Tamaki.
"These days, because everyone is so busy, it is becoming more and more
difficult for people to take the time to sit around the table and chat.
That's where the Wii Message Board comes in. Even when families can't
spend time together because everyone is always coming and going, a
quick look at the Wii Message Board will allow the family members to
feel the presence of the others, even if only slightly."
Iwata
responded by saying that he wanted the Wii Message Board to "collect
memories over time, recording what different family members have done."
Messages posted to the message board, which can be created and stored
according to date, will act like a calendar. Or, said Tamaki, the
Message Board can even be used, "like a diary by just filling in the
day's events, and your game records are entered automatically too. It
is a tool for preserving memories as well as linking family members
together in an inconspicuous way."
Tamaki went on to refer to
the Wii Message Board as a two-way street, in that not only is it
capable of storing information, but also sharing that information with
friends and family once the console is online. Tamaki stressed that
this information wouldn't be publicly available by default, but rather,
"this network basically works in the same way as the one for Animal
Crossing on [the Nintendo DS handheld system]. That is, connection is
not possible unless both users register each other. That means there
won't be any unwanted communication from strangers, like harassment or
suspicious spam messages."
"We've designed [the Message Board]
so that you can exchange information with your registered friends,"
Tamaki said. As an example, he offered a scenario in which, upon buying
a new game, the Wii console asks the user if he or she wants to let
their friends know about the purchase. Then the information "X just
bought game Y!" would be displayed on user X's friends' Message Boards.
Tamaki also revealed that e-mails, photos, screen shots, and game data
could be sent over the Wii Message Board in addition to simple text.
Developer
Tomoaki Kuroume spoke about the Wii Message Board's integration into
the Wii interface as a whole, saying, "Initially, we included the Wii
Message Board along with the other Channels in the Menu Screen panes.
However, the Message Board has so many applications, and it can be used
along with all the other Channels, so we thought it would be slightly
misleading to line it up alongside the other Channels. In the end, to
represent the way that the Message Board is working behind the scenes
of the other Channels, we designed it so it would appear by sliding the
entire screen. This means that when you turn on Wii, it's very quick
and simple to see the Message Board."
Kurome drew an analogy
between the Wii Message Board and the bulletin board one might find on
a university campus. These boards typically feature notices of events
on campus, invitations, reminders, and other important information.
Regardless of what's on an individual campus message board, the one
thing they all have in common is that the information is public, or
available to all who view the message board. This means that messages
found on the Wii Message Board will be readable by anyone who views
your console's Message Board and that individual users will not have
private accounts. "Of course, we had a fair number of discussions
internally about, for instance, whether the whole family should be able
to read messages from [a user's specific] friends," Tanaki added. "But
what we were aiming for was not an e-mail function. The idea of users
having their own private space on Wii clashed with the overall concept
of the console."
Tanaki elaborated, "Just as we want the Wii
Remote to sit on the coffee table for everyone to share, and just like
your favourite Channel and your mother's favourite Channel are found on
the same menu, we want the Wii Message Board to be somewhere where the
family can easily share and exchange ideas. Everyone's entries in the
calendar will go from being future plans, to becoming everyone's
memories. With a device like that in the living room, I hope people
will say 'Wii is just like a member of the family!'"
The latest entry in the Iwata Asks series of interviews can be found here, and the series so far can be found here.
Stay tuned to The Wiire on for the latest Wii news as it approaches its worldwide debut on November 19.
