Nintendo Breezes Into Retail.

Today is the day that Nintendo's Wii goes on sale for the North American market. Nintendo hopes to regain the lion's share of the video game market by changing how we play video games. Nintendo has taken an entirely different approach with the Wii. Nintendo is offering the cheapest console of this current generation. It's only $249 compared to the $300-$400 and $499-$599 offerings of Microsoft and Sony respectively. To do that they've had to offer up the technically weakest system in terms of technical specifications. They've also embraced the all in one box they've until now rallied against. The Wii will surf the net. The Wii will go shopping. The Wii will play online games. It'll actually play games online that weren't made by SEGA and aren't Phantasy Star Online E1&2! The Wii handles digital photos. The Wii will tell you the weather conditions in Egypt. The Wii will also play all Gamecube games off the discs. The Wii will emulate games from the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64, SEGA Genesis, and the Turbo Grafx-16. Oh yeah, and it'll even play Wii games too. But the real aspect to the system is of course its radical departure from the standard controller concepts. The Wii uses Wii Remote that is as it sounds. It's a wireless controller shaped like a television remote that features tilt control. There is an attachment that connects to the Wii Remote that is called the Nunchuck. The Nunchuck provides an analog stick and a couple buttons. The system also is able to register the controller's spatial positioning as well as being able to track movement through said space. So in other words, you'll swing that Wii Remote like a baseball bat when playing baseball. You'll make the sword motions while playing a game with sword fighting. It's a huge gamble at this point. It could go either way. It might be Nintendo's biggest success or it might be their biggest blunder. At 10:30 am this morning I set out to GameStop to pick up my Wii. I got there five minutes before they opened and noticed a couple people waiting outside.  I joined them and instantly recognized the seventy year old woman from the preorder line. She recognized me and we greeted and she proceeded to tell me just how much she's enjoying Final Fantasy 12 and how she's so excited to get her hands on Zelda for the Wii. Out of nowhere there were likethirty people there. The store opened at 11:00 am and we all went in to the manager informing everyone that they only got the exact number of systems they took preorders for. Five minutes later I was out the door with the Wii and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. They didn't get in any of the Classic Controllers I had preordered. This launch was a breeze compared to the nightmare experience of getting an Xbox 360 last year. The system is tiny but is actually heavier than I would have expected. The system is essentially the same size as three DVD cases stacked up. The system also feels extremely solid and dense. The Wii Remote feels solid and sturdy. Especially after you've put in the batteries. It has a nice weight to it. It's still a little smaller than I was hoping for. It fits my hand comfortably though. The Nunchuck on the other hand feels very light by comparison. It feels less solid and sturdy than the Wii Remote. Setting up the Wii is a little more involved than the standard console. You still have the power supply and the composite cables. But this time you also have the sensor bar so the system can read and interact with the Wii Remote. The sensor bar must be placed in front of or on top of the television. You're going to have to deal with positioning everything. I ended up having to move the satellite receiver so I can affix the sensor bar stand to the top of the television. The Wii Remote comes having been calibrated in the factory to work with your specific Wii already. As in the case with consoles these days the Wii needs you to tell it what day it is and what time it is before you can use it. If you enter the Wii Shop channel it will prompt you about connecting to the Internet. I use the Nintendo USB Wi-fi Converter for the Nintendo DS to get online and I'm glad that the Wii easily uses the same device. Getting on was as simple as selecting the test option and then which method you'd like to use. The Nintendo USB Wi-fi Converter was listed. It took all of a half of a second for the Wii to locate the device and a few seconds to confirm my connection. Upon connecting it prompted me for an update that took a minute or so to download. The update unlocked the Wii Connect 24 and Wii Shop channels. A second update followed. There is a lot to do in just messing around with the layout of the Wii interface. You can set all your options like how you want the system to deal with the Wii Connect 24 feature. That'swhere the console is online twenty-four hours a day even when the system is off in what's called the standby mode. I have it so that Wii Connect 24 is on when I'm on, and it's off when I power down the system. You can mess around in the Photo Channel if you have photos already on an SD card.  You can create your Mii in the Mii Channel. The Mii is essentially an avatar that you can incorporate into games that use the feature like Wii Sports. That way you can create something along the lines of Nintendo's version of a Sim and carry it across games. You can send your Mii to friends as well as using them in games. Speaking of friends, the friend code system on the Nintendo DS is clearly a pain in the ass. It makes a return with the Wii, but thankfully it's a single code based on your system. So you only have to enter the codes of your friends a single time instead for each and every game. The Wii system interface is as one would imagine, very pointer friendly for the Wii Remote. It's sparse and all the buttons are comparatively oversized which makes using the pointer aspect of the Wii Remote a breeze. It works wonderfully. Even typing in your address and your credit card number and friend codes and the like are decidedly easy to do. The system is full of sounds that initially I find a little grating. They're new age tones and chimes. The Wii Shop Channel features very cheesy mall Muzak that's appropriately fitting. An inspired choice. I like the look of the system itself and the interface is functional. There are some aspects to the interface that aren't the most streamlined in my opinion. Overall I'm happy with what's there. The news, Internet browsing, and weather service aspects of the channel menu aren't active. There are a handful of Virtual Console games to try. Nothing I'm particularly interested in paying for to see how they actually perform. I'll have to wait for something worthwhile to test that out. I had no problems purchasing Wii Points via my credit card with the system. I entered ZBo's and Pent's friend codes and sent them mine. I also sent them my Mii and I've accepted ZBo's Mii on to my system. I spent a little time messing around with Wii Sports to get a sense of the controller in action. I'll just say the initial impression is mixed and save any real details for another entry. It's a good start for Nintendo. Everything seems to be working as it should and was relatively painless to this point. And as far as I know, nobody has beenshot in attempting to secure a Wii. There do seem to be a lot of people left wanting one though as they've apparrently mostly sold out before stores ever openend. People were aware and they were lining up early. Nintendo reportedly shipped a million units. They reportedly have a million more to ship before the year's end in the US alone with launches in both Japan and Europe this year. People should be able to start getting them from weekly shipments starting with Black Friday. Let's see where it all goes, shall we?