If you can somehow manage to pry yourself away from the recent release of Mario Kart Wii, you might notice that today Nintendo launched its personal, appropriately-named channel, the Nintendo Channel. Now, I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but after a brief 30 minute self-introduction, I’ve discovered that this is a channel you might actually use.

Once the channel has been downloaded from the Wii Shop channel, you can then run it like any other channel from your Wii main menu. When you first load the Nintendo Channel, you will be greeted with a few introductory messages about sending data, what the channel is about and so forth. After those are done, you see the channel’s real start-up page, which is a video featuring all of the latest updates at the time.

The main menu of the channel mostly shows videos of games, with some commercials mixed in. However, If you dig a little bit, you will find something that almost every Wii owner has wanted since the release of the system - a DS Download Station. Woot! Nintendo is now offering demos that you can stream straight from your Wii into your DS. This morning, I played Brain Age 2 and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword - both of which I’m probably going to buy now. Thanks for finding another way to siphon my money, Nintendo.

DS Download List (5/7/08):

• Brain Age 2
• Flash Focus
• Crossword DS
• Jam Sessions
• Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
• Cooking Mama 2: Dinner with Friends
• Disney Friends
• Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword

This is very exciting! The guys over at High Voltage Software have just announced a project in the works for the Wii. This new game is called The Conduit, but more importantly is the fact that they have created a new engine from the ground-up for this game, named Quantum3.

Features:

• Dynamic bump-mapping
• Reflection and refraction
• Light / shadow maps
• Projected texture lights
• Specular and Fresnel effects
• Emissive and iridescent materials
• Advanced alpha blends
• Light beams / shafts
• Gloss and detail mapping
• Interactive water with dual-wave channels
• Heat distortion and motion blur

Among other things. This game is already looking to be one of the most graphically-impressive titles on the Wii, and it doesn’t even have a publisher yet. Let’s hope that greatness comes from these guys. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Got your copy of Smash Bros. yet? You better. IGN announced today a new project that they’ve had in the works (we assume) since custom stages were announced for Brawl. Super Smash Bros. World is a new website where players from around the world can upload and share their level creations. All you have to do is save it to your SD card, and you are good to go! Now you no longer have to worry about getting only one “official” level from Nintendo a day - you can get as many as you want.

See you in the arena.

In a quick follow up to our recent post on the Photo Channel update we have found that you can downgrade if you think that it is totally lame that there is no more MP3 support. Here is a quick guide on downgrading the photo channel from Nintendo. Word on the streets is that this only works on Wiis purchased before Decemeber 2007.