Wii Mania (for the rest of you)

Right off the bat I am going to have to admit to not being a huge fan of the Nintendo Wii. I bought one around launch, and it was really fun for like two weeks, and then I didn’t touch it again until Paper Mario came out which was fun, but didn’t do anything particularly Wii-ish. It could have easily been a Game Cube game.

I feel like the machine is a gimmick, they created a not very powerful but cheaply produced box and attached motion sensing controls. The controls are neat, I’ll give them that, but it just isn’t enough for me. I see video games turning into an art form, another vessel to tell great stories. The Wii scoffs at this idea, and it’s games are mostly just simple gimmicky control based fun. And it is fun, but they aren’t looking to create character based games that have stories to tell.

But the numbers do not lie. In April the Wii sold a whopping 714k units. Second place in home consoles was the Xbox 360 with 188k and the PS3 with 187k. So you can combine those two and just pass the halfway point to what the Wii sold. The Wii is just on fire right now. It’s tapped into that iPod “I don’t even know what this is but I need to have it” sales area, and Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank.

Someday soon I am going to write a long diatribe about how the Wii and the 360/PS3 aren’t even competing, but this isn’t the time or place for it yet.

Wii mania has taken Squidoo by storm also. Thefluffanutta has many, many lenses, but one of his top (and always in the top 3 of the video game section) lenses is My Top Wii Game Reviews.

This page is an excellent resource for any Wii owners out there. It is filled with reviews of most of the major games out there, and other news and info related to this casual gamer leaning console. I had a chance to chat shortly with Da Fluffa, as I like to call him, and he said he has more in store including reviews of some more recent releases.

The Wii definitely skews to a different, less technical savvy audience than most video game systems, and as such it’s new to video game fans may feel at a loss when looking for info on the system. Reviews written by “professional” video game websites will not be written with you in mind. This is why Squidoo is amazing and Thefluffanutta has tapped into a huge void and filled it with some great info. He doesn’t get overly technical, he explains how each game is fun or not fun, what you can expect and gives you a clear picture on whether you should go spend your money on a certain game.

I plan on referencing this lens and Thefluffanutta personally on a lot of Wii related stuff, because he has it all covered. It’s from and for a casual perspective, for you to decide if your 4 year old daughter or 80 year old grandmother will enjoy the game. Big ups to him for filling a void that needs to be filled. And also doing it so I don’t have to. Because, really, just give me a controller and a couch, I don’t want to dance around with a wand and get “Wii-fit.”