Channel surf with Nintendo’s TV companion

Poor TV. Interactive entertainment eclipsed boring episodes of the Real World ages ago. In Japan Nintendo is attempting to turn their (now?) fit gamers back into couch potatoes with the Television no Tomo Channel G Guide for Wii. The free channel is essentially a Japanese equivalent of the interactive TV guide added in many digital cable boxes. It has some neat technical features like transforming the Wii remote into a TV remote and showing your friend’s favorite shows. The most practical feature allows users to set the program to e-mail a cell phone or other address with an alert you before a favorite show airs. Personally, I don’t need ketai-mail to remind me to watch TV. I would much rather save the precious blocks of space on my Wii for Virtual Console games and all those WiiWare titles coming later this month.