Wii Purchase - Before you Buy Nintendo Wii

Wii was released on November 19, 2006 with the aim of changing the entire arena of gaming with a new controller. Along with this Nintendo has also released new games to attract new players. The company has provided many reasons for naming the console Wii, but the most common reason is "Wii sounds like 'we', which emphasizes that the console is for everyone." People around the world can easily remember Wii; no matter what language they speak. There is no confusion and there is no need to abbreviate. Nintendo further provides reasons for naming the console as ‘Wii’. The two lower case ‘i’ characters are meant to resemble two people standing side by side representing players gathering together and also representing the console’s controller.

Features of Wii

The Wii console is the smallest home unit (weighing less than 3 pounds) that Nintendo has produced till date and can be placed horizontally or vertically. Following are some of the features of Wii:

• The new Wii will be compatible with all older versions of Nintendo GameCube games and other peripherals.
• It can play two disc formats in a single, self-loading media bay.
• It will contain a processing chip from IBM and a graphics chip from ATI.
• The feature of parental control is available to prohibit young children from playing games with content that are not suitable for their age. This is possible as the console reads the content rating of the game data and if the rating is higher than the value defined, then it will not load the game until a correct password is provided.
• I personally feel that the best feature that is available is that Wii has a built in wi-fi access for easy connectivity to Nintendo wi-fi connection gaming service.

How Wii Works

Wii translates the movement of the user into in-game action. It contains gyroscopes and accelerometers internally, which detect tilt, rotation and acceleration as you drive a car or fire a gun. The Wii can also be used as a pointer with the help of an optical sensor along with a TV mounted sensor bar that will allow users to sweep crosshairs or move a cursor across the screen. An additional controller is provided for complex games, which does not work as a pointer but can detect motion and also as an additional thumb stick. This additional controller is known as the ‘Nunchuk’ because of the look that it takes when two wireless controllers are connected with a cord.

Nintendo Wii Price

Nintendo is now producing about 1.8 million pieces of Wii per month. The sales of the console have been higher than all its competitors across the globe. The original plan was to produce about 1.2 million pieces of Wii per month but with the release of Microsoft XBOX 360 and Sony Play Station 3, they decided to speed up the production. Even with this astounding mass production of Wii’s these units are still priced at $250 per piece. Despite the high volume of production and the exorbitant price, there is always a shortage of Wii in the stores, especially during the holiday seasons. Hence, people are now turning to eBay and Amazon websites to purchase either used Wii sets or by paying more than the retail price. Well, like many parents across the country, if you are forced to turn to auction websites to buy Wii consoles, then do remember to use the usage guide available on the Nintendo website that will give you a fair idea as to what price to pay for a particular Wii set after you input details like how old the set is.

Nintendo DS

The first Nintendo game console released in North America (prior to Japan) in 2004 was the Nintendo DS, which is a handheld console. The console comes with a clamshell design along with two LCD screens one of them being a touch screen. As a matter of fact, the official name of the console is ‘Dual Screen’. It also has a built in microphone and supports wi-fi which allows players to interact with each other within a predefined range. Nintendo DS Lite, the advanced version of Nintendo was released in early March 2006. These consoles are slimmer and lighter when compared to Nintendo DS with brighter screens.The design of Wii has been influenced by Nintendo DS. Wii’s designer Ken'ichiro Ashida has said that, "We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS's touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype."

I am waiting for a phone call from my store, stocks are all over and will have to wait a little longer for my new year’s gift…no points for guessing that one, yes it is a Wii.