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Comment by dfajgljsldkjag | Hacker News Reader

I used to check this occasionally back when the console was new. It is interesting to see that people are still keeping it running. I guess there is a niche for everything.

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I really liked the Wii interface as a TV interface. It felt very much like a modern way to navigate a TV. Modern TVs have some of those features, but none with the whimsy and fun of the Wii.

The Wii had the best and most responsive Netflix interface on any system I've used before or since. It's a shame they ended support for it, or I'd probably still be watching Netflix via Wii.

Thanks for bringing back memories of the Netflix Wii Channel. At the beginning it was on a disk. We used the Netflix wii channel until the day they dropped support. Our Wii long outlived its life as a games console by continuing on as a netflix machine. I still miss using the actual pointer to point at things, it’s just such an intuitive interface for a TV

EDIT: I just looked it up and apparently the wii netflix channel was supported until 2019, so my memory of using it until it went bust were incorrect. We prob used it until around 2012 or so

Funnily enough, there was even a channel that let you control your TV with the Wii sensor bar - although they only ever released it in Japan. The Wii U had a similar feature worldwide but Nintendo actually killed it after a few years.

>a channel that let you control your TV with the Wii sensor bar

Are you sure about that? The Wii sensor bar is not a sensor at all; it's just a pair of small lights that the camera on top of the Wii Remote monitors in order to determine movement.

The lights in the sensor bar are infrared lights. If you blink them at the right rate, they can simulate an IR remote control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_no_Tomo_Channel#TV_remote_c...

Interesting. I originally assumed it was some kind of HDMI-CEC technology. It was just the sensor sending the right IR signal to the TV.

The Wii was still in the SD era and only had analog outputs, it never got HDMI. (I guess it could have done CEC over SCART in the EU, but this channel was in JP where they used D-tanshi)

>The Wii was still in the SD era and only had analog outputs, it never got HDMI.

Wow, that's true. It could only go up to composite output. I had forgot. Good times.

For me, it's just such a nostalgic and pleasant to use interface. I still keep the Wii up and running to play some retro games every now and then (it's a great emulation system as well). Being able to learn more about how these "old-school" Nintendo web apps work was something I had been curious about for awhile!

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