Shop For Wii

Let me start this off by saying I've always been a fan of Nintendo. I grew up playing the original NES, loved the SNES, had over 20 games for N64...and then Nintendo started to be a let down with the Gamecube. Yes the gamecube had some quality titles, but were the handful enough to justify owning the system? Not for me. When the Wii came out I was VERY skeptical and had a feeling I'd end of passing it up. Well after some more consideration I thought it might be something fun for me and my wife to play (before I sound too old here, note I'm in my 20's). After weeks of searching hard to track down the Wii I finally managed to buy one.

The system started out fun, I enjoyed playing Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros, etc. Basically the system had those typical quality first part Nintendo titles. Flash forward and Mario Kart was released and was definitely interesting to play, though personally I preferred the control precision offered with an analog stick and not the wheel. After about 6 months more of the system sitting around collecting dust I kept searching and searching for quality Wii games...they were no where to be found. Yes the system has some great titles, but once again just a small handful like the gamecube did. It seems 96% of what's released on the system are poorly thrown together mini games that score 4.0-6.0 ratings and just flat out suck. I can't tell you how many times I stopped to look at the Wii games in Electronics only to be disappointed time after time with what's available. Overall Nintendo is *STILL* lacking quality third party titles.

Graphics completely aside, all this time while the Wii was sitting I was getting tons of use out of the PS3 with many great titles. To me the Wii isn't quite the bargain everyone makes it out to be. Just because the initial system purchase seems small does *NOT* mean the overall cost of ownership is. I spent just as much money on the Wii as I did my PS3 once you factor in grabbing a couple controllers / other shells needed for games. That is the whole point of the system right...to play with other people and have fun? Nintendo makes a KILLING on remotes for this thing. Sure..$199 for the system with the price drop, plus $40 for another WiiMote + 20 dollars for another Nunchuck...oh but wait now there's "Wii motion plus" ok another 20 dollars for each controller you own. These costs add up very fast.

Nintendo also seems to enjoy crippling their own services. So they offer all those games via the Wii Shopping channel, the games that you can only put on a 512mb internal storage or 2gb SD card...are you kidding? In the day in age where you can get 8gb flash drives for $29, 4gb microsd cards the size of your pinky for $13...I think Nintendo could of offered a better means of giving us storage for the games. Personally to me, the Wii is NOT worth the $250 it was launched for and still isn't worth the $199 it's now selling for. When you look at what the console is capable of doing in comparison to it's competition it's nowhere even close and I don't mean just graphically. Both the 360 and the PS3 offer tremendously more features. Yes the Wii has the motion sensing controller but it seems very few developers make good use of it and even the games that do make interesting use of it..you still lose precision more often than not over a standard (and much more comfortable to hold for long gaming sessions) controller.

It also really annoys me that other than the games running at a max of 480p resolution, Nintendo offers no means of improving what old titles look like. Both the 360 and PS3 offer smoothing effects and also use anti aliasing to clean up the older titles and make them a lot clearer / more vivid. It amazes me that even the most poorly written emulators on the PC (sorry not illegal when I own the old systems / games) offer screen smoothing, anti aliasing, etc to make the games look SO much better, yet Nintendo doesn't do this!

I realize hardware isn't everything, but it is nice to feel immersed in a game with gorgeous graphics and detailed sound. Yes the Wii is selling good, it seems quite popular among families, that's great. For myself, I sold it and recently bought the Holiday Bundle Xbox 360 elite. It's already got more playtime than my Wii had in a year of owning it...sorry Nintendo but this was my last let down system from you! Get more detail about Wii.