Wii Zero-Day Hands On

Sensor Overload

Contrary to some reports, the Wii requires only a single sensor for the remote to work. It's about nine inches long, one inch deep and a half inch tall, with a long, thin grey cable to connect to the console. We placed the sensor on the top edge of the center channel speaker that sits right below our monitor; Nintendo includes a couple pieces of mounting tape, as well as small stand to accommodate the sensor. Once in place it's quite unobtrusive, and since there's already an A/V cable running to the console, the connector cable doesn't add much more clutter to the media center.

Remote Channel Control

With the sensor in place, we turned on the console for the first time, and were greeted by an instruction screen for the remote, then a warning screen similar to what we quickly scroll through on the DS.

The remote responded with only the barest calibration efforts -- we simply had to tell the Wii what hand we primarily use to control the remote, and whether the sensor bar was mounted above or below the television.

Like everything else about the console, the operating system is friendly, even inviting. The 'Wii Channels' concept seemed confusing at first, but in practice it makes perfect sense. Insert a disc, and the Disc Channel in the upper left will display the type of disc or game title.

The Mii Channel allows you to create a custom avatar for various "casual" titles, including the Wii Sports pack-in -- cartoonish and blocky, but with a surprising amount of variety and detail. There's the option to let your Mii roam the internet to other consoles (where, among other things, it can appear in games and parades) and we're curious to see how far Nintendo takes that concept.

We checked out the Photo Channel by popping our camera's SD card into the front slot. It was recognized immediately and we were able to scan, rotate, and throw effects onto photos. While we like the idea of uploading photos to the Wii message board, we'd also like to be able to save photos to the console itself.

Using the remote to navigate the OS has so far proven to be almost as natural as using a controller, and we expect that as we acclimate to using the pointer, it will feel more smooth. The only thing that bugs us about the remote so far is that, while there's an options panel containing a few tweaks, there's no way to remap the selection button, which is currently set at A. (The button below the d-pad.) It seems much more natural to use the trigger to select menu items; we'd at least like the option to change it.