Revolutions are rarely announced so far in advance. But after years of tinkering and publicising, Nintendo’s new games console has finally hit the market.
The Wii, long known on the internet under the working title ”Revolution”, is Nintendo’s new entrant into the gaming field. It has been designed to show up Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation while replacing its hapless predecessor, the Gamecube.
At a low price, a wide selection of games and, above all, new technology, Nintendo hopes to regain a healthy share of the gaming market.
The Wiimotem, or the system’s controller, provides the console’s magic and it resembles a TV remote. Motion sensors let the Wiimotem act according to requirements — anything from a steering wheel to a sword or a tennis racket. Players do not have to master a dozen buttons to play a game. Instead, they just take the device and swing it like a golf club.
”We want the Wii to reach whole new target groups that, up until now, have had a kind of fear of video games that seemed too complicated,” said Stefan Gundelach of Nintendo in Großostheim in the German state of Bavaria. Even beginners can figure out the controller.
”New customers are Nintendo’s biggest chance,” says Markus Schwerdtel from the Munich-based magazine GamePro. ”This is something for people who might normally not be so interested in games.”
In addition, Nintendo has picked a great design. ”This looks like an iPod for the living room,” says Schwerdtel.
Priced at €250, the Wii is affordable. ”But image is even more important,” says Schwerdtel. ”Nintendo was always a kind of toy. The competition was just cooler.” New games, a new design and new marketing could change that now.
There are already 27 titles to kick off sales. For the first time in Nintendo’s history, Mario is not in the line-up. The Italian plumber will have to wait. To make up for it, the newest version of the Zelda games is already on shelves. Electronic Arts (EA) is bringing out sports and car-racing games, normally the domain of Xbox and the PlayStation.
”The new controllers create fantastic possibilities for game designers and developers,” says Martin Lorber, of EA, which wants all consoles ”to exhaust their individual possibilities”. Technically, the devices might be more tempting than what the competition is offering.
The Nintendo controllers are revolutionary, even though they use relatively simple technology. The Xbox 360 and especially the PlayStation 3, when it comes on the European market in March 2007, will offer more computing power.
”The Wii in fact is a lot less powerful,” says Schwerdtel. ”Anyone who has a giant high-definition TV in their living room is better off with the competition.” But the competition just happens to cost twice as much as the Wii. — Sapa-dpa