Play History Channel Revealed

In the latest in a series of online interview-roundtables with members of the Wii development team, a brand new Wii channel has been revealed: “Play History.” As the title of the channel suggests, it allows players to view a record of how long they have played each Wii game for and possibly more.

“Wii automatically records details of what game was played, when and for how long,” Tomaoaki Kuroume said in the roundtable. “This is called the Play History. There’s nothing controversial about that, but what did cause discussion was the fact that the Play History cannot be deleted. It’s not that we couldn’t change it if we wanted to, but at the moment it is not possible to delete it.”

“It’s just really fun for users to be able to see the record of how long they played,” said Iwata. “In the future, we could make it possible to plot on a graph how much you’ve played. Also, with users’ cooperation, we could compile data on which game was the most played that year.”

Iwata also went on to say, “I’ve said this countless times already, but when developing Wii, I thought constantly about what we could do to stop games being regarded with hostility in the family. So I came up with a suggestion, perhaps a rather outlandish one! (laughs) What I thought was that if a parent said that their child was only allowed to play games for one hour a day, how about making it so the console actually turns itself off after an hour? I realized the head of a games company shouldn’t think things like that! (laughs).”

During the roundtable, the subject of the Wii Message Board Channel was discussed, as well.

Tamaki talked about how the message board channel will work in games themselves.”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,” he said. “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.”

Meanwhile, developer Tomoaki Kuroume touched on the integration of the message board into Wii’s UI, 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.”

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!'”

Finally, Tanaki talked about privacy issues with the message board, saying, ‘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.”

Be sure to click here to read the full developer roundtable.

AMN Wii will have more on Wii Channel and all its sub-channels as it becomes available.