Nintendo relesed some marketing materials about their new console's "dashboard" - Wii Channels. This could be base for speculative discussion for comparition XBMC and Wii channels, as dashboards, interfaces, media and games centers. I hope that this discusion can inspire some XBMC programmers and skins developers to improve existing or develop new skins.

Starting Screen vs Home screen.
Starting Screen on Wii is grid 3*4 icons with status bar on bottom. According to Wii Webpage icon order can be changed and new channels could be added. Probably more comfortable than PMII home screen or MC360 blades.
Game Channel
Nothing intresting was disclosed about this Channel.
Mii Channel
This is unique feature of Wii. There is nothing to compare in xbmc, nothing to miss either.
Forecast Channel vs. Weather
Forecast channel features very impresive Earth model for displaying weather, but 3 cities from XBMC is just enought for me.
Photo Channel vs My Pictures
There are only two feartures of Photo Channel not in XBMC: photo editing and sending photos to other consoles, and "to communicate with family members".
News Channel vs Rss Feeds
Wii has news reeder with 3 zoom levels. Xbmc has only scrolling rss headlines, and no good news/rss reader integrated in any popular skin.
Internet Channel
Wii has Opera! No comparable equivalent on xbmc. Yes, Linksboks is hardly comparable. There is no chances for compiling any closed source browser (Opera and IE) on xbox. Any chances for open source?
Virtual Console
Nothing intresting was disclosed about this Channel, besides partial list of games. Emualtor shortcuts in xbmc are functional and not very comfortable, but Emulauncher script looks very promising.
Wii Shop Channel
Nothing intresting was disclosed about this Channel, besides pricing model for Virtual Console. Various scripts for dowloading contents for XBMC are done or in development.

PS. I DO NOT want to start any flame wars. This is NOT Xbox vs Wii, Nintendo vs Microsoft vs Xbox homebrew developers! I don't even mention the four-letter "S"-word.

hmm.....thanks for the info, rafal100. maybe eventually people can collaborate to make Wii skin for xbmc.

can u post any pics, rafal100?

I'm afraid, no. There are 5 movies showing Wii channels "in action" on official US Wii webpage (official US Wii webpage - Movies show japanese version of intergace). The UK version (link in first post) has better descriptions of channels, but no movies.

Wii skin for xbmc? Interesting idea. I was thinking rather about improvements to existing skins.

*cough* bump *cough*

Anyone willing to take this up, now that both are out?

I would love to see something like this. I love the simplicity of the Wii

well, i might work on a "Xii" Skin, when i'm done with my current Project...

Thats a nice mockup! It looks great!

Nice mockup. I havent even seen the Wii's dashboard yet so I couldn't compare, but the mockup still looks nice indeed.

thanks ;-) it's not a complete clone... it's just similar to the gui, on the real wii the buttons are more rounded rectangles...

It looks really good but i dont know about the all white background, i know it's a mockup and all but with white i just see alot of screen burn you know?

That looks really nice. Too bad wiimotes arent compatible with xbox

Not a bad idea. I'd be willing to help out once done with the iTV skin. is anyone doing this? i have a wii so i can always check it out.

here's some pretty cool wii icons too (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/41980387/) that whoever is working on this skin might want to contact.

I have a wii also so if you want any help just let me know.

Also the glovepie scripts for windows (and I think maybe linux) have been released. I wonder how hard it would be to make a bluetooth adapter and glovepie work on XBMC would be. If you could do that then wiimotes would be able to be used on an xbox.

Any more mockups?

how about we get this one started this one can be great

i was thinking we can have it so we can add channels
like in manturafs favorite mod for the mc360
or somethin like that i donno

i dont have a wii wii
so i dont even know how the menu feels but it would be nice

WOW thats nice i would love 2 see this skin get done

SCREENBURN!!!

lol, I wonder if it would do damage to tvs. I would be scared to use a pure white skin on my tv, heck I am scared to use the Wii.

LCD no screen burn. I'll have one soon. That's the main reason I want a lcd tv.

Screwyou guys. I have a 4x3 480p tv and I am jealous.


sorry I wanted to use big letters to.

it doesn't have to be pure white.. this was just a mockup ;-) plus you can always put some kind of background animation...

Even though xTV still has a lot of small tweaks and work that needs to be done, I'd thought I'd maybe start on the coding for this skin if people are still interested. it's a simple interface, but since Wii is not a media center, some of this will have to imagined.

not sure how much time can be devoted, but we'll see how it goes.

I think it would be great if you were able to work on this skin, with the way it is setup with channels you can pretty much do anything you like. To make it simple you can just have each channel go to menu such as system, video, etc.

i no i would like to see this skin hell ill put it as default

anyone started on this?

yep! i'm working on the coding as we speak. i'll probably need help at some point replacing all the half baked graphics i made since i'm not a graphics guy, but i'm slowly making progress.

Awesome man cant wait to see what you got goin' on.

it's good to see some interest so we'll see where the skin takes us. right now i'm finishing up the settings part of the skin (what happens after you press the Xii button on the bottom left corner). That means I just have to finish coding the file manager and the gamesaves. Then i'll take the parts one section at a time starting with videos. i don't think i have any screens of sections that would interest everyone, but if you want to see the settings, just let me know and I can post those. however i'm on the road right now for work so it may take a day or two.

Hell I would likde to see some pics, even though I am not a huge fan of the interface, I would still like to see where this is heading.

that is exactly what i was thinking gottastopdrinkin, very interested in where this is heading...

This skin is beautiful! I usually just see dark skins around here, and I would love to see a simplistic white skin in my xbmc. Thanks for working on this!

i didn't forget about you guys. working hard on the skin to get some screenshots out. hopefully i'll get some images soon too and you'll see where this is heading.

i know it's been slow but it's been crazy times and parts of this skin have been extremely difficult. however i finally got some graphics together and certain sections are pretty much done. however to give you an idea of the work in progress and what's been so far, I thought I'd throw up some screenshots. now most of the graphics are thanks to gasclown and he's done a great job.

keep in mind this is a work in progress and some of xbmc's coding limited me a bit, but it's still decent. hope you guys enjoy and i'll keep working on it.

this is looking great keep it up

Yes. Very nice.

Be-au-ti-ful.

I WANT Xii!!!!

Very cool so far.

ME TOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not too shabby at all!

Looking great.

A little off topic here, but:


There is no reason that you couldn't build an Xiimote... the technology, while seemingly complex could be handled by making a homemade lightbar(Already done for the wii) and using a mouse and some IR sensors to get the mouse x/y coordinates. Go cordless on thsi design and a Xiimote seems pretty simple. Probaly need a PIC controller somewhere in the mix, but thats not too difficult... Mice circuitry is small, so fabing a wii styled remote to encompass the whole thing is simple. Wire in some buttons operationg on standard ascii keyboard settings and you gould get a working Dpad, select, back, accept... etc... all totally compatible with XBMC... then replace the cursor icon with the wiihand thingy and BAM.... you might as well have a Wii.

Now back to the topic, this skin seems pretty cool. Emulation is after all, the highest form of flattery.... might as well flatterthe wii I guess.

hows it goin manturafs any updates or screenshot

gj on this one

it would be cool if there was an integrated web browser in the skin like the real wii's internet browser because linksboks sucks

no new screenshots. the work so far has been just making this look consistent in my pictures etc. i guess the next screenshot that would be different would be the osd which i haven't even thought about yet. just working on getting the regular views all right first.

and an integrated browser? prolly not. this is just a skin, but it wouldn't be hard to add a link to linksbox (i know i know, you said you don't like it) or some other homebrew browser, but i don't really know of anything else.

Looks promising.

where to download?

WIP - not yet available for download.

I like where this is going. I wasn't too interested at first, but after seeing that later screenshot, I'm very, very intrigued. Keep up the good work!

like others, real life syndrome hit hard so this has slowed down. however with the end of the month gone things may speed up again.

This skin looks sweet styll, VISION u got some compitition here.