Next, TV Guide makes its way to the Wii

By Tim Conneally | Published March 10, 2008, 4:43 PM

Gemstar's G-Guide interactive program guide, the company's Asian market equivalent of the TV Guide Channel will be coming to the Nintendo Wii, with no launch date yet determined.

G-Guide has found its way onto practically every platform in the Japanese market: DVRs, TVs, Mobile phones, and online. This marks the first example of Gemstar's IPG making its way into a video game console.

Gemstar's program guides are approaching saturation point. Last week, Gemstar announced its G-Guide will continue to be licensed to Mitsubishi for inclusion in all new TVs and DVRs, adding to its repertoire of licensees which already includes most major Japanese TV manufacturers.

While there is no word yet as to whether the Wii-based version will be an online complement to the existing web-based G-Guide or if it is software-based, a further statement from Gemstar and/or Nintendo to BetaNews is pending.

Preliminary reviews of the "Television no Tomo Channel G Guide" suggest that the Wii controller can be configured to act as an all-in-one remote, with commands sent to the software through an IR connection between the sensor bar and the user's existing set top box. This raises a host of technical questions, which hopefully Nintendo will be able to answer soon.

Comments

View comments by with a score of at least

Now if they would just offer a Standalone Recorder... A nintendo Wii Tivo!! Its not hard to envision this concept. The Wii has some real potential with its channels system.

I already tested TVersity (for my files) and Hulu (for feeds) services through the Wii Internet browser channel... Works like a dream. This was a natural extension. Now to integrate the TV feed from your cable box and allow some time s***ing ability with the Wii, maybe a future HD option? boy that would be nice...

Wii TV seems like a good option from japan, but I think that is basically just ads and stuff... not TV feeds.

Score: 0

|

It's not the remote. The remote is simply a camera. The IR bar flashes the code, which bounces off a mirror, wall or window somewhere in the room that the TV picks up.

Score: 0

|

This article is a little behind the times. The TV service has already launched for the Wii in Japan. A quick YouTube search reveals several videos of the Wii TV channel in action.

Score: 0

|

PDC 2009: What have we learned this week?

There was the freebie that no one will forget, the heebie-jeebies courtesy of Scott Guthrie, and a teensy bit clearer picture of how this cloud thingie should work.

Live report: Will Google Chrome OS change Linux?

The mysteries of just what Chrome OS is, and how much of an operating system it truly is, may be resolved today.

PDC 2009: Microsoft cares about Web browser performance

The effort to give users of the world's dominant Web browser the impression of quality, is a personal one for the man who leads that battle.

Nokia re-affirms its commitment to Symbian, sort of

Maemo won't necessarily be replacing Symbian in the Nokia N-Series, but that's definitely a place where it will be found.

E-book readers will be in short supply this holiday season

E-readers are hot this year, and a lot of compelling new products have been released, but are there enough electrophoretic displays to go around?

Sony looks to finally open a single storefront for downloads

Sony has had many different download portals for movies, music, e-books, and games, and now it's looking to make a single shop for all of it.

Tuning out the tablet: Time to give the endless speculation a rest

Wide Angle Zoom: Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying....won't put an iTablet on the market.

Five improvements for IT managers in 2010

If businesses are to improve their efficiency for next year, they need to stop and reassess the basic tenets of their job.

AOL's spinoff from Time Warner to shed 2,500 jobs

As AOL moves toward become an independent company again, it will cut nearly a third of its workforce.

Gartner: SMS-based money transfer will be bigger than mobile browsing, search

Gartner issues its predictions for the 10 things our phones will be doing in 2012.

Don't forget to upgrade to Firefox 3.6 beta 3 today

Mozilla has released the latest beta its Firefox 3.6 browser software, just over one week after beta 2.