Wii Channel: Let Us Know Our Own Gaming Habits

Everytime I receive WiiMail messages I get this feeling like Nintendo missed out on a great opportunity. The messages I'm talking about are the ones you see after you visit a Wii Channel or game and play a few minutes. You receive a Wii message with the total amount of time played that day for each channel or game. The problem is this appears to be where the data collection ends, at least on our side. I'm sure Nintendo is sitting in their cleanly polished, white offices just laughing at the fact that they know all of our gaming habits. The least they could do is share some of this data with us.

I started thinking, after reading a blog entry about personal annual reports, how cool it would be to know the amount of time I have spent on each game throughout the year. I know I could just as well go back through and chart my gaming habits on my own using the WiiMail messages but that's just not something I am willing to do. So it hit me, why don't they give us some details displaying our hours played for each game similar to the graphs Brain Age and Wii Sports have?

Perhaps a bar graph for the hours spent on each game this month.

It would also be a neat idea to allow (not force) users to sign in using their Mii character so the system could analyze and collect data based on each user's experience rather than the system as a whole. This way a mother or father could easily tell when each child is playing a game and help monitor play time without having to ask the older siblings who's hours were played for each game. I may be getting a little off the subject here but the possibilities are limitless. Perhaps a star would appear on your chart when a particular game you were playing was completed. Who can get the most stars?

Maybe a line graph for the hours spent on all games for my profile.

I wouldn't mind a bar graph informing me the hours played for all profiles.

I would love to have this released in a new Wii Channel with a few online features. How neat would it be to compare your graph for the month (or year) with a friend of yours that you have exchanged Wii Codes with? This would help those exchanged Wii Codes seem worth something; not to mention the rivalry that would come with collecting stars. And can you imagine the marketing possibilties for Nintendo? If 10 of your friends all purchased Mario Galaxy and have been playing it five hours a day it would give you more incentive to buy the game yourself. Would any of you guys enjoy a feature like this or am I sitting out here on this pedestal alone?

Everybody Votes Channel Updates?

Fiddling around with the Everybody Votes Channel last night, which I do at least once a week, and I starting thinking how much better the channel would be if it allowed you to see your friend's scores and rankings. Just the simple option of going down a list of your friends (those of which you have exchanged Wii Codes with) and seeing their current rankings would make the channel all that more exciting. Not really sure if exciting is the correct word to describe the Everybody Votes Channel but you know what I mean. Maybe you could even send a little message to a friend with something along the lines of "you actually would rather take advice from Oprah, Warren Buffet is so much cooler." Or maybe an option that would allow you to make your own survey questions that only your friends could respond to and see their results. Not only would that add another question to vote on but it would really feel like "everybody" was voting; not just you and your second Mii you added just so you don't vote alone. Keith Urban sang it best, "Nobody votes alone." Or maybe it was drinks, I forget.

The best, or could it be worst, part of all this is the fact that Nintendo could very easily add features like this with a simple Wii Update. Now I know Nintendo doesn't like putting out Wii Updates if they can help it (hence the reason the Wii has only had 4 updates since it launched 8 months ago) but an update like this would actually have a purpose. What does "everybody" else think, could this or will this ever happen? What features would you like to see added?