So which ones should I cull? Certainly, the MK and WF channels are mandatory. If I ever just want to play some Kart at lunch, I can just boot up the channel and take part in a tournament or race a friend. I can see how I compare to other Kart players around the world and with my friends (I'm about average). That's all I need to do at lunch. The WF channel is great for when friends come over and want to try the game, or I'm in a hurry and just want to see my Wii Fit age. I love these game-specific channels, because they have practical functionality.
Likewise, I love the Mii Channel. Not so much for CMO (see below), but because I like seeing my address book friends on my system and in my games. And creating Miis is fun, if a little limited. Besides, Miis form the heart of Wii Sports, Wii Play, Wii Fit, and to a certain extent, Mario Kart Wii. So I love the MK, WF, and MC because they all have good practical value. The other channels? Not so much.
Case and point: The Nintendo Channel. The NC makes me sad, because it's really just the advertising channel. Aside from the slew of Wii Fit videos, it's just a breeding ground for commercials--commercials I have no interest in seeing. Oh look, a behind-the-scenes look at the "America Ferrera Plays New Super Mario Bros." video. I started it, gagged on the scripted propoganda, and turned it off. The only thing saving the NC right now are the DS downloads, which are kind of cool, but there aren't nearly enough of them. I imagine that the NC could be pretty awesome if there was educational stuff on there. The "How the Wii Fit Balance Board Works" video is a good start. But I'd like to see videos about how a game is made, or how a character is created.
Check Mii Out has become stale since users have just begun copying each other. When I saw a parade of identicle Abraham Lincolns parading down the winning square, I got scared. It's fun to make your own Mii entry, but will it win? Probably not. Will it place highly? Not anymore, not if it's unique. Judging contests is boring because most users just throw upload a random Mii, without making any effort to create a new contest-specific one. I never really click on CMO anymore, and it, along with the NC, is on the chopping block.
I can't let go of my Weather Channel, though. It's so satisfying to fly around the globe and see what the temperature is in Greece or Antarctica. And the local five-day forcast on the Wii is, sadly enough, more accurate than our newspaper! The Anchorage Daily News keeps claiming it's gonna rain, but it never does, and the Wii has predicted "overcast" for the last week, without a hint of rain. Similarly, the News Channel is something I probably won't give up. I like reading it more than the newspaper, especially on Thursday nights, because a lot of Friday movie reviews are on the News Channel by Thursday night. It's also awesome to see where in the world the story originates. Oh, and I'm a sucker for news crawls, and every time I turn on the Wii, I wait for the top stories crawl to run across the channel itself.
The only channel left over is Everybody Votes. I'm on the fence with this one. On the one hand, I like the process of voting on a question and then, a few days later, finding out how many people agree (or disagree) with me. On the other hand, a lot of the questions are stupid. One of the most recent ones, for example, asks: "Do you still own a record player?" The possible answers were, "Yes," or "No, what's that?" Well, I know damn well what a record player is, but there was no "No" (period) answer. A lot of questions are like that--kind of snarky and assuming. Overall, I like EV, but there's not a whole lot to it.
So I could probably get rid of a few channels and increase room for Virtual Console and WiiWare titles. Now, I certainly like seeing my Wii's front page filled with Wii-specific channels, but when my Wii's internal memory limit is at stake, it's time to do some pruning. What about you readers out there in Readerland? What are your favorite (and least-favorite) Wii Channels?
