This week, YouTube began offering a new channel built strictly for the browsers of the Wii and PS3 gaming systems. Judging by the early feedback, the one for the Wii can already be considered the better offering of the two.
The dedicated YouTube channel is also offered in a few other set-top boxes and will be coming up in several new widget-enabled TVs, but bringing it to gamers on their regular sets is a good move. According to the respective companies, there are currently about 40 million Wii owners worldwide and over 20 million PS3 owners. The intent of both channels is to offer an easy-to-use interface for full size screens.
The Opera browser for the Wii is already getting raves from users for its visual similarity to Wii Channels. The six-window arrangement makes it easy to find videos of interest, and when you blow up a video to perfectly fit a full-screen, it correctly behaves like a regular desktop browser. The regular internet Wii browser sometimes forced full-screen videos of the TV screen, which was annoying. I tried the channel earlier today and browsing through videos was simple and intuitive, just like the site. You do lose some functionality from the regular browser (like sorting by views), but it look great.
The PS3 YouTube channel, on the other hand, looks OK, but isn’t as appealing as the Wii’s. A few people are already saying their experience with the browser is a bit slow. Considering that the Wii has had the upper hand in terms of user experience since it came out a couple of years ago, this isn’t too big of a surprise.
Now, the only big-time system without a dedicated YouTube channel is the Xbox 360.
What about you, readers? Do you care about this new option on your gaming systems or not? Do you use their web browsers on your TV with regularity? Let us know in the comments.
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Photos: blogoscoped, lifehacker, Nintendo
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