Hi, I'm Kawamoto of the Software Design & Development Department. Just like in the News Channel, I also worked as the director of the Forecast Channel.

I'm Suzuki of the Software Planning & Development Department. I worked as the liaison between our staff and the forecast information provider. Like the News Channel, the Forecast Channel was going to be launched simultaneously in Japan, US, and Europe, so I also worked as the liaison that coordinates between each of the countries.

The Forecast Channel was developed with almost the exact same staff members as the News Channel. The News Channel was originally developed from the concept that we wanted to get people who would usually not play games to have a chance to use Wii. The Forecast Channel was created from the same concept.

Like the News, the weather forecast is also something that you can easily get on TV and the Internet, so we first started by trying to differentiate between these services. As a way of giving the Forecast Channel a look that's distinctive to something that can only be done on Wii, displaying the forecast information using the Globe was there from the early stages of development.

In that way, it has the same roots with the News Channel.

 

Since Wii's original concept was to add more channels to the TV, displaying a clock on the upper left corner of the screen1 was an obvious choice. When we thought about how it would be used in a busy morning, we felt adding the clock was necessary.

It was a lot of work organizing all the forecast information around the world, but compared to the News Channel which has multiple news sources, the Forecast Channel was easier to develop in a way that there is only one forecast source that provides the weather worldwide.

Whether it's the news or the forecast, I felt that we were working with information that had life. All these issues do not come up when you're developing a video game.

 

I usually find myself turning the Globe, too. As you turn the Globe, you keep looking to see what the weather is like around the world. Like the temperature on the South Pole, and the weather in Everest. I look at the forecast of places that I would never check if it was not for the Globe.

We actually had many discussions about what places around the world should be displayed on the Globe. Basically, we put in all the names of places that would be on a regular globe. Then after that, we received request from other countries to add in places that were not there, and we pretty much put in everything that we could.

The names of places that are displayed on the Globe are different depending on what country you're in. For example, if you're in Japan, a lot more cities in Japan will be displayed, and if you set the country of the North American version of Wii to the US, the Globe will display several hundred cities across the US.

The thing is, the Earth is so huge, so it's really hard to say which places are important to be on the Globe. There might be places on there where people would say "Why on Earth is this place on the Globe?" (laughs)

The picture of the world on the surface of the Globe is based on accurate data provided to us by NASA. This may be a good place to learn your geography.

 

While we were developing the Forecast Channel, I was very surprised when I found out how much of a cultural difference there was between Japan and overseas, about the way people view their forecast information.

 

The most notable one, I think was when we were requested by NOA (Nintendo of America) that the current weather information had to be included in the Forecast Channel. Being Japanese, when I first heard that, I couldn't help but think "But why can't you just look out the window?" I asked about this many times, but they told me that it absolutely had to be there. I actually worked with some doubts in my mind, wondering if it was just the person that I was talking to felt this way, or if everybody in the US actually felt this way too.

There were also types of weather that are not found in Japan. I felt that it was not possible to make the icons universal, so we made two sets of icons, one set for Japan, and another set for overseas.

And like how "Cloudy" had several different versions...

 

When I mentioned to them that when those icons were made, they really wouldn't look that different from each other, they responded by saying "No, it's different, so please change them."

We never see a weather icon for haze here in Japan, so I had to request samples on how they were supposed to look like.

The type of information that we think is important is completely different. Overseas, there isn't such thing as a laundry index.2 When we first mentioned the term, they replied by saying something like "What in the world is a laundry index?"

Up to that point, I thought that the laundry index would be important information in other parts of the world, too. Maybe since it's less humid than Japan, clothes dry easier. In the end, it turned out that the UV Index was the only thing that remained.

So it can be better accepted by people living in both Japan and overseas. In the sense that I learned how to see things from a global perspective, it was the perfect job! (laughs) Speaking of global, in the just released Everybody Votes Channel, you can tell how differently other people think around the world.

What was memorable was the thunderstorm icon requested by NOA (Nintendo of America). It's a storm that's accompanied with thunder, which was a little hard for us to understand because here in Japan, we don't see the weather where it's only thunder. Thunders are usually mentioned in addition to when it rains, as if it's going to rain with occasional thunders. So I didn't think a weather icon just for thunder was necessary, but it seemed like a thunderstorm was different from a regular thunder, and as I was wondering what the difference was, they kept insisting that it was very important for this to go in.

Right when we were talking about that, a thunderstorm actually hit Seattle where the NOA (Nintendo of America) headquarters is located, and the situation turned very bad.

They were out of electricity for several days, and we weren't able to get in touch with them. This happened right in the final phase of the development of the Forecast Channel, and as I was wondering why they weren't responding to my emails, I finally got one saying "We're working under candlelight. When this laptop's battery runs out, I will not be able to contact you..."

I don't mean to be rude, but while I was actually wondering if it was that much of a big deal, the news about that thunderstorm came into the News Channel that was still under development. It was a big disaster, with trees falling, tens of thousands of households were without light, and it took days for the electricity to recover. As I was watching that, I realized how much of an impact it really had.

A similar thing happened in Europe right before the launch of the News Channel. A big rainstorm that was unseen in decades hit northern Europe, and we lost touch with everyone in NOE (Nintendo of Europe).

That also showed up on the News Channel, and when I saw that, I realized that these events were actually happening, and how terrible the situation was.

But around that time we were thinking about how what we're making now is really not what we wanted to make. As we were trying different things, the idea to make it look like a TV program also showed up here as well. When the TV concept came up, we then wanted to make it so that you could get the exact information you wanted just by taking a quick glance at the screen.

Matsushita-san also worked on the design of Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. The way that game displays your brain age in big bold print, feel somewhat similar to the way the Forecast Channel displays the temperature, like "25C".

Speaking about a TV-like design, there's a clock on the upper left of the screen.

 

That went in because I wanted to get as much people as possible to see the Forecast Channel as something that they could relate to. I hoped that could be their first step in interacting with Wii. For example, if we can have Mothers wanting to power on Wii, that would make me very happy.

At first, all we had was the Night Song. It's a great song, but it is an easy, healing song, and it can make you feel sleepy, which I thought might not be a good thing in the morning! (laughs) So then I requested that the Day Song to be made. The easygoing song will play from the afternoon to the morning. The Slide Show feature in the News Channel has a similar feature where a slower song will play at night. I might have gone a little too far in paying attention to these details.

That reminds me, there's a feature we tried out after the release of the News and Forecast Channels from the feedback we received from both inside and outside of the company.

A different development team is experimenting with a library that reads text out loud. It's the feature that was put into the "DS Cooking Navigator" for the DS. We tried implementing this feature for the News and Forecast Channels, thinking especially for the Slide Show feature on the News Channel, if the Channel reads the news out loud, you won't even have to keep your eyes on the TV. It sometimes can't correctly interpret the kanji characters used in people's names,3 but there are times where it seems that those minor issues work for the better...

It's actually cute when it reads the kanji characters wrong. Like the way it reads the name of the actress Kiki Kirin as "Jyumoku Nozomibayashi-san".

 

While I would like an opportunity to put in updates, just thinking of the things involved if it does actually happen gives me mixed feelings about the subject. Just taking the feature where it reads the news out loud for you, for example, it would need go through a lot of work for it to be able to work for different languages around the world. And whether it's for the News Channel or the Forecast Channel, we can't just make it, but we also have to make sure that it's going to work and be stable. So you're talking about totally different things when you're just making a prototype software for trying things out, versus actually performing an update. Of course I do realize that it this was going to happen as a new project, we're the ones that are going to be put in charge! (laughs)