Out of the three systems, the Wii’s user interface is probably the best.
When you boot up the Wii, you are presented with a three rows that are broken up into four slots. This screen gives you the choice of which channel you wish to load up. Initially there will be six channels: one to load up your Gamecube or Wii games, one for the Wii Shop, one where you can look at photos you have uploaded into your Wii, there is the Mii channel where you can build your Mii’s and then there is the Weather and News channels. You can add more channels by downloading the Opera Internet browser and buying games from the Wii shop channel.
The channels can be moved and arranged however you so choose by simply holding the A & B buttons on the remote. This allows you to move channels you aren’t using as much further down the screen or off-screen entirely (much as I have done with the photo, weather and news channels). One of the best things with this ability to organize the channels as you like, is that when you purchase games off of the Wii shop you can put them however you like. Leave them how you bought them, sort them by name, system or frequency of play, it’s all up to you.
You can upload photos from your digital cameras to the Wii using the SD slot and organize and look through them in the photo channel. You can even play a puzzle game with them where the pieces of one of your pictures get mixed up and you must put them back together. The news and weather channels are much what you would expect however unlike my computer, I really don’t find much use for these channels. When I’m playing my system, I don’t really care what the weather is like out. If I’m really in need of it that bad, Ill go and look at a weather channel rather than turning the system on.
The Wii Shop channel is very straightforward and simple to use. After connecting to the internet, you are given the option to go into the virtual console store where you can buy games or into the second store, where you can currently only download the Opera browser, but it seems as if Nintendo plans on further applications for the system. There is also a place where you can buy the Wii points, used to buy things in the shop. This is one of my peeves with the Wii, by buying their points, it almost assures you that you’re going to be spending more money than you desire. If you spend 20 dollars on the points, but only spend 18 on games, those other points will just sit there until you spend more money on the virtual console games. The only thing that lightens this blow is that Nintendo will likely be releasing at least one game in the near future that you will wish to buy, so it’s not a total wash.
As compared to the X-Box 360’s rather boring browser and the PS3’s bland and somewhat sloppily done browser, the Wii is a godsend. It is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. Plus, it doesn’t have the PS3’s ridiculous symphonic music when you load it up. Now we just need Nintendo to release some good Wii games and applications to the shop to warrant a purchase of this system.
Score: 8/10