What's Hot - Nintendo Wii

What's in a name?

As the holiday season approaches, gamers impatiently wait to get their hands on the new Nintendo video game console, codenamed Nintendo Wii. The company has taken a decidedly alarming approach to making games: instead of focusing on bigger and better graphics technology, they are focusing purely on game-play and how we interact with games.

Brave new world of control

The heart and soul of the Nintendo Wii is the new controller. Dubbed the "wiimote," the controller resembles a TV remote, with a directional pad, a few buttons and a trigger. The one-handed device can be attached to a 2nd control device that can take the form of different kinds of control schemes.

The radical design of the Nintendo Wii is not the only new feature; the wiimote is packed with motion sensors that detect physical motion, such as tilting, and spatial motion, which allows the controller to act as a pointer.

For games, this is revolutionary. True, this type of motion has been seen before, but to make this the standard control means that games will have to adapt to a new control paradigm.

No guts no glory?

With the Xbox 360 and the incoming Playstation 3 pumping out the latest and greatest in graphic processing power, the antiquated graphics of the Nintendo Wii may seem like a losing stance. However, the fanatical determination to make games fun again should be enough power for Nintendo.

Under the hood, the Nintendo Wii isn't pushing many more pixels than its predecessor, the Gamecube, was putting out. In fact, the new console is about on par with the first generation Xbox.

Recent Nintendo history should show us not to underestimate the power of pure game-play however. Critics scoffed at the Nintendo DS, its dual-screen portable, but it has gone on to be the fastest selling game system in history.

Nintendo intends to bring games back to basics with games like WarioWare, a Revolution port of the DS mega-seller, which is a collection of minigames that challenge players to do simple tasks repetitively like squatting or hula-hooping.

The wiimote allows for all types of new, but intuitive, mechanics based on simple movement.

Old-school

Perhaps the best thing to come from the Nintendo Wii is what they are calling the "Virtual Console," a service that will allow players to download old games from the Nintendo catalog and play them on the Wii.

Indeed, many gamers are extremely excited to get their hands on the classics once again. Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros., Contra, and all of the other Nintendo classics are available for a small fee.

Will this bold stance on bringing purity of game-play back to videogames be enough to hold the market share away from the powerhouses from Sony and Microsoft? Will gamers and non-gamers alike respond to the radical new direction, affirming that Nintendo is on the right path?

The world will have to wait until the Nintendo Wii is released this fall to find out.

More information on Nintendo