|
The Wii, seven months later.
posted by GJ on July 2, 2007 @ 10:19AM
As most of you know, I spent the wii hours of a Sunday morning outside of the Clifton Park Target store, hoping to land a Wii console on launch day. It was a spur of the moment decision made the previous afternoon. I figured the demand for the Wii would be less than the PS3 which was released a few days earlier. So, I showed up at 4:20 am and found maybe 30-35 people in line. Ouch...I was pretty sure that this target only had maybe 40 consoles based on some inventory numbers I stumbled across on Saturday. As it turned out, there was 40 people in front of me. Target had 42 consoles. Several folks that arrived just minutes after I did left without a console. Ouch. Seven months later, it's no different. If you want a Wii, you are still waiting in line in the early morning hours (at least it's not November now) and you still have to be pretty lucky. Nintendo grossly underestimated the demand for this console. But, surprise, this isn't the point of my post--just the background. The real point is, what do we think of ours? Is it ground-breaking? Was it worth the investment? Will it truly revolutionize the console world? First, the numbers: Wii Console: $250. That gives you one Wiimote, and one Nunchuk. It supports up to four of each, and a Wiimote runs $40, a Nunchuk runs $20. Want component cables for your Wii, or even S-video? Fork over another $30. Rechargeable batteries for the Wiimotes (a must), plus a fast-charger: $35. Most every game released to date: $50. Holy crap I've spent a lot of dough on this thing. I won't bother to tell you how many games we've acquired. :) Game Impressions: a few gems (Wii Sports, Wario, Raving Rabbids, Resident Evil 4), a few amusing ones (Big Brain Academy, Mario Party 8, Wii Play, Trauma Center, Excite Truck, Marvel Ultimate Alliance), and a few duds (Farcry, Tony Hawk). Not bad, but so far the third party games are far behind the Nintendo authored ones. If that doesn't get fixed soon, the Wii could go the way of the GameCube. Did I mention that the GameCube compatibility is 100%? We are still playing (and buying) GameCube games. If you own a GameCube, the Wii is not a bad choice for an upgrade console. Another benefit--the Wii is a great first-person-shooter console system. The Wiimote makes an excellent aiming device. If you love shooters on a PC, and don't much like console shooters, again, the Wii is for you. Now for the bad news: graphics. Nope, it's not that the Wii can't do it--it's actually more powerful than the GameCube, but you'd never know it. Most of the games done to date wouldn't have pushed the GameCube CPU very hard. This is very disconcerting. One hopes it's only due to the fact that developers are still new to the system. It's definitely not the equal of either the 360 or PS3 in terms of raw horsepower, but it cannot appear to its owners that it isn't much better than an SNES.
| Tags: games, technology
|
