I still haven’t gotten a Wii… I’d enjoy having one, I think, the missus and I could play Wii Sports together, I’d love to play Super Mario Galaxy (I’ve been a huge Mario fine since Super Mario Bros. in the arcade), Boom Blox looks great, I know I’d enjoy Zelda: Twilight Princess and probably Super Paper Mario and Metroid Prime 3, but, hmm, is that it? Ultimately, the Wii is a glorified Gamecube with a few extra tricks. I will give you those tricks are pretty neat and it does stuff no other console can yet do, but I still ask: is that it? The almost complete lack of good games is disappointing, but not a surprise – the Gamecube lacked good 3rd part y games in the same way. The lack of graphics capability is also pretty sad, but, one can easily argue that most people will buy it for Wii Sports and a handful of other titles (almost exclusively produced by Nintendo) and call it good – any game that comes out for the Wii and 360 or PS3 is all but guaranteed to be better on the other console.
Is, are those fancy Wii tricks enough to justify a purchase? For the new “casual gamer” Nintendo audience, who either buys it on the hype or specifically for those tricks, absolutely… I know several people who only have Wii Sports and use it as a party game, but, I firmly believe the Wii, more than any other console, will be found in garage sales, ebay auctions, and craigslist ad’s after a year or two — once they are plentiful and the shine of Wii Sports wears off and people see that so few good games come out for it.
The Wii hardware begs for a revision. While I would love to see a Wii that can put out 720p (HD), the current games likely wouldn’t support it, so 480p is probably where things will sit, BUT, what is really lacking on the Wii is storage. The Wii has a paltry 512MB of internal storage and the external (SD) storage is of quite limited use. At first glance this might seem enough, but with Virutal Console, Wii apps like the browser and channels, and WiiWare this will rapidly turn out to be not enough storage except for the most casual of gamer. This single factor keeps games like Rock Band from offering downloadable content (songs). I am really hoping Nintendo will soon offer a solution for the Wii’s storage inadequacies. The TiVo can “marry” a second hard drive to the first, making them a seamless storage space. Nintendo should either offer this as an option or an option to use external SD storage in place of the internal storage, although it might not be fast enough? Alternatively, an option to use an external USB hard drive.
I realize it sounds I am pretty down on the Wii. Does that mean I won’t get one? Ultimately, I probably will get one. I will probably hold out until (a) they are plentiful (b) Nintendo solves the storage problem and (c) Nintendo realizes $250 is too expensive for what it is and lowers the price. At that point, I’ll either bite the bullet and pick up one at retail or get one of the many used ones that will be floating around. In the mean time, there are tons of games on the 360 that will keep me busy.
I have been thinking about getting a gaming system. The games with the footpads and action controls seem interesting, but I like joysticks the best. Can you play regular games on wii and action controls with x-box 360 or ps3.
Very few games use footpads – primarily just games like Dance Dance Revolution use the dance mats. The Wii uses the “Wiimote” and “Nunchuck” for most game control, but some Wii games also support more classic controllers (like those that came with the Nintendo64 or Gamecube). These controllers are essentially “gamepads.” The Xbox360 and PS3 games use, almost exclusively, gamepad-style controllers. I believe this is what you are referring to as an “action control”.
The modern gamepad controller (as seen on the Xbox360 or PS3) may seem daunting to a new player, but it allows one to control the game using two thumbs plus your index fingers (on the “triggers”). With some practice, this style of controller gives the player far more capability and control than the classic “joystick” of historical arcade games.
The Wii is primarily focused on the very “casual” gamer or somebody who wants to having a gaming box they can drag out at parties. For this niche, the Wii serves beautifully. The Xbox360 is generally focused at the more serious gamer. There is a huge variety of casual and serious games with a strong concentration of First Person Shooter (FPS) games such as Halo3. The PS3 serves approximately the same audience as the Xbox360 but arguably has a smaller library of quality games. The one major advantage of the PS3 is that it also serves as a Blu-Ray player for disc based HD movies, assuming you have an HD-TV.