Sunday, November 24, 2013

Nintendo returns to the console competition

After the Gamecube was released in 2002, and was relatively ineffective at wedging itself into the market shares of Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo took a second try at it with the Nintendo Wii.

The most unique part of the Wii was that it was more interactive than the systems prior to it. The controller can actually respond to being physically moved and allow players to swing the controller like a golf club, a baseball bat, a bowling ball or even a sword (in Dragon Quest Swords), granting a new sense of 'realism' to gaming. No more hitting the 'X' button to somehow kill the slime, now you actually are swinging at it and stabbing towards the screen with your controller!

Later in its timeframe, Nintendo realized that people were more conscious about getting fit and exercising, and with a  controller that responds to movement already, why not go the next step and make fitness related games, hence came Wii Fit.

The folks at Nintendo really put innovation on a pedestal with their ideas with the Wii, and keeping a tight hold on their staple icons of Zelda and Mario Bros. made it that if you wanted to have a go with these all-time favorites, you needed to return to the Nintendo franchise to have access to them.

Nintendo Wii actually beat both Xbox 360 and PS3 in sales numbers worldwide, and in Dec. 2009 broke the sales record for a single month in the U.S, with their DS handheld device coming in 2nd for the month.  (^ "Wii and DS thrash competition in US News". Eurogamer. January 14, 2010. Retrieved Nov. 24, 2013)

Wii has sold over 100.3 million units worldwide, with a game library consisting of over 1,200 games, but their network store also allows you to play games from older systems (NES, SNES and even Sega Genesis games) on the Wii, which brings it's totals to 1778 games (according to Nintendo Inc. Official Site) (http://www.nintendo.com/games/gameGuide accessed Nov. 24, 2013)

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