Next, TV Guide makes its way to the Wii

Gemstar's G-Guide interactive program guide, the company's Asian market equivalent of the TV Guide Channel will be coming to the Nintendo Wii, with no launch date yet determined.

G-Guide has found its way onto practically every platform in the Japanese market: DVRs, TVs, Mobile phones, and online. This marks the first example of Gemstar's IPG making its way into a video game console.

Gemstar's program guides are approaching saturation point. Last week, Gemstar announced its G-Guide will continue to be licensed to Mitsubishi for inclusion in all new TVs and DVRs, adding to its repertoire of licensees which already includes most major Japanese TV manufacturers.

While there is no word yet as to whether the Wii-based version will be an online complement to the existing web-based G-Guide or if it is software-based, a further statement from Gemstar and/or Nintendo to BetaNews is pending.

Preliminary reviews of the "Television no Tomo Channel G Guide" suggest that the Wii controller can be configured to act as an all-in-one remote, with commands sent to the software through an IR connection between the sensor bar and the user's existing set top box. This raises a host of technical questions, which hopefully Nintendo will be able to answer soon.