From everything that we've learned about it, Wii Channels appears to be a pretty weak offering from Nintendo. Fortunately, people aren't going to buy the Wii to surf the Web or look at photos; they're going to buy it for the games. There's still the distinct possibility that Nintendo will announce an online gaming feature in the near future, but as it stands the Wii's Channels and online system are pretty underwhelming. One would think that the success of the Xbox Live online system would inspire Nintendo to take a similar route. However, Nintendo has been clear from the start that the Wii is taking a different path from the big boys, and for the most part the company's choices have been spot-on. Let's just hope they don't screw up what could be another selling point by aiming just at non-gamers.