King  Gary 

Mashable recently published a post entitled “17 Web 2.0 Sites Optimized for Your Wii“, which contains a list of top websites that are optimized for the built-in Opera web browser on the Nintendo Wii. When I got my Wii, one of the first things that I did was try out the web browser since I thought it was a pretty cool feature on the Wii. I was aware of StumbleUpon‘s new website called Stumble.tv, which is designed specifically for the Wii, so I checked that out first. It’s basically StumbleUpon for videos from YouTube and Google Video, and optimized for the Wii.

Stumble.tv was interesting for the first few minutes, but its novelty quickly wore off for me. Watching YouTube videos on my computer was bad enough, what with the low video quality, but when watched on an LCD TV that’s much larger than my laptop’s monitor, it just wasn’t cutting it for me anymore. The website responds to the Wii Remote‘s buttons, using them as navigational controls; they are pretty useful and intuitive, I’ll give you that.

Another major issue that I have is that if you want to click on links, you have to point the Wii Remote at the link and press a button. Simple enough, right? After a short while, though, it quickly tires out your arm because you constantly hold it in parallel to the ground in a steady position. Playing games on the Wii does not tire out your arms as easily because you are constantly moving around, so you get to flex those muscles. This is why I’d rather just jump back to my computer to do whatever I need to do instead of using the Wii for something that is not one of its main features.

I’m surprised at the number of Wii-compatible sites so far, because a large number of them are simply recycled websites that respond to commands sent by the Wii Remote. I’m still holding my breath for a Wii-compatible website that will blow me away. (Or maybe one of you could point me in the right direction?)