After dragging myself home from a holiday party in Manhattan, I just wanted to sleep. Nintendo had different ideas. In the middle of the night, my room exploded with a bright and bluish light. Is it daytime already? No, there’s a new message on my Wii. The slot illuminator with holiday cheer. Nintendo was bragging about the Wii Gifting option in the Wii Shop Channel.
Apparently, Nintendo thinks that I eat Wii consoles. Just look at the greeting…
Dear Nintendo Consumer,
We are pleased to announce that the following two new features have been added to the Wii Console: (1) Wii Gifting in the Wii Shop Channel and (2) an update to the Photo Channel.
The Wii Gifting feature allows you to buy games for your friends and family and to gift such games to them right from your Wii Shop Channel. To learn how to use this new feature, go to http://nintendo.com/wii/channels.
In addition to the Wii Gifting feature, the Photo Channel has been updated to allow you to: (1) paste your favorite picture on the Photo Channel icon displayed on the Wii Menu and (2) play AAC-format music files while viewing slide shows.
After reading the official message from Nintendo, I updated my Wii console to try the new software. The initial update was a little slow, but the photo channel update was the fastest Wii addition that I’ve ever seen. With my console up-to-date, I was read to send some holiday cheer.
Unfortunately, holiday spirit was quickly diminished…
[Player Name] can’t receive your gift for one of the following reasons:
- [Player Name]’s Wii number has either been changed or has not been registered with the Wii Shop Channel.
- [Player Name] already has this title.
- [Player Name]’s Wii has a different country setting from your own.
- [Player Name] has turned off receiving gifts in their Wii Shop settings.
I tried a bunch of different games, and I tried sending a Wii Shop Channel Gift to another person on my friends list, but it just didn’t work. The old saying goes, “It’s better to give than receive.” Well, it looks like I’ll have to give those 1,000 Wii Points to myself. I wasn’t able to use them for anyone else.