Nintendo Announces Wii Gift Giving, TV Guide

By Shawn White / Friday, 26 October 2007

Nintendo Worldwide President Satoru Iwata has unveiled plans to introduce new functionality to Japanese Wii owners next spring. Although Nintendo did not provide official titles for said functionality, users will gain access to a television schedule channel and have the ability to send downloaded games to friends for free.

The television schedule channel will act as an interactive guide that helps people plan out their TV watching. Whether or not the channel will cost Wii Points is unknown.

Additionally, Wii owners will be able to send downloaded games to their registered friends as free gifts. When the recipient accepts, the Wii Shop Channel will automatically launch and begin the download. "We think this will be a breakthrough in encouraging customers to spread news of fun games word of mouth," Iwata said. "We also hope to spur more users to connect their [Wii consoles] to the Internet."

Iwata did not state if these new functions will become available outside of Japan.

The Wiire will have more on Wii's expanded abilities in the future.