Fun With The Nintendo Wii
This afternoon my wife and I went to check out our friend’s Wii at a “Wii party” - he got it last week. There were a bunch of people trying the thing out, having a great time playing the Wii sports of tennis, boxing, golf, and bowling.
My opinion is that it’s awesome fun. The games are simple enough that pretty much anybody can get into it. The kinetic motion control aspect is brilliant. All the games would be basically stupid pre-Wii (i.e. if you just were to press a button to swing a bat or a racket), but the addition of motion adds a whole new level to the game play. Enough so, that while playing Wii tennis, the instinct is to use the same arm gestures, poses, and swings as you would playing the actual game.
A few downsides (not big ones, though) - at one point, someone hit another person’s shoulder with the Wiimote. While playing a four person game of tennis, I was getting tired out from laughing and the physical exertion. I definitely think there are going to be some unintentional injuries with the Wii - either people whacking each other with flailing arms, or passing out from the physical exhaustion - especially for those gamers whose usual position is sitting on a couch with a pizza on your stomach.
Potential physical pain and lawsuits aside, Nintendo has done a pretty smart thing here. They probably knew they couldn’t compete directly with XBOX 360 or PlayStation 3 as the console’s graphics are admittedly underpowered and inferior. So they went around this negative by using different controllers and designing the games and UI to be really simple and fun. Some folks today were calling it “Mac-like.”
The other sneaky thing is that because of the simpler hardware, the Wii is relatively cheap - about $250 plus another Wiimote (for at least two person play) will set you back only $300. At that level it’s an expensive but doable impulse buy. Think the iPod Mini.
I’m thinking that because of the lower price and the simple, fun game-play, the Wii is going to find a huge number of mainstream buyers. Serious gamers might find it wussy, but there are tons of families and game novices (like myself) that see this as a better value over other consoles (or at this price, someone with an XBOX 360 might pony up for Wii because it isn’t that expensive). I’m thinking about my wife, who shies away from video games or most electronic devices with more than four buttons. After a bit of bowling today, the “spousal approval” barrier was dropped. She’s thinking the Wii would be a fun way to get some exercise.
Nintendo, that’s freaking brilliant. I hope someone’s working on a yoga title.
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