Youtube's Pope Channel on Wii and PS3

YouTube is reaching more viewers than ever, now addressing Wii and PlayStation 3 gamers, as well as Catholics directly.

Although the Vatican did not reveal exactly when the channel launches, viewers loading up the Vatican-dedicated YouTube channel will be able to view Pope Benedict and church events uploaded to the channel. According to the Vatican press, the initiative will involve Google, Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center. More details will be available this Friday at a news conference involving Google's managing director of media solutions Henrique de Castro and Vatican officials.

YouTube is also addressing Wii and PlayStation 3 gamers directly by offering a television-optimized version of its popular video-sharing service here, featuring streaming navigation, and enlarged text. Called YouTube for Television, the revamped interface is designed for the ten-foot living room experience optimized for the web browsers built into Nintendo's Wii console and Sony' PlayStation 3. YouTube also stated that the service would offer support for browser-integrated set-top boxes coming in the near future.

"YouTube has partnered directly with major TV and set-top box manufacturers to bring YouTube into the living room," says YouTube in a blog posted last week. ”Still, very few such devices today contain a Web browser or provide access to YouTube. Our hope is that this site may help to accelerate an industry evolution towards open television access to Web video. Over time, we plan to add support for additional TV devices that provide Web browsers."

Currently there are around 20 million PlayStation 3 owners and 40 million Nintendo Wii owners. As of this writing, Microsoft's Xbox 360 is the only current-gen console that cannot access YouTube's new customized service.