Nintendo Wii

[Doug]

I escaped the Pokemon hell game...the boy wants Sonic Colors instead.  So I picked up Sonic Colors and Batman The Brave and the Bold for 70 bucks.  Christmas shopping is done.

[Butter]

This week, it's a $30 gift card at Best Buy for buying 2 Wii games $39.99 or more.

Sadly, all of our Christmas shopping is done.

[Doug]

I hate this time of year when I get all cocky and proud of myself for the great buy's I've made and get undercut by an even better deal.  I got some stuff online from the Disney Store for 15% off with free shipping.  Found it 15 bucks cheaper at Target last week.  ARRGH!

[Poolio]

The new Epic Mickey game looks awesome.
They had the guy who did the score on NPR the other night and it sounded awesome too.
They did a retool of the "it's a small world" theme that was pretty cool

All the reviews of that have been very positive. If I had a Wii, it'd be on my "must buy" list... it looks like a blast.

Hee!! Since I just got a Wii, now I can get Epic Mickey! Goodbye freetime!!  

[Butter]

So, the new Wii was unveiled.  The controller looks like this:



So it's going to be like eleventy billion dollars.

[dirk]

I think it would be a cool add-on, but I just can't imagine using that as the main controller.  The thing is going to weigh a ton for a controller, and is big and unwieldy.  It's going to be like holding a tablet in your hands for 2 hours, which I just don't think is going to be a pleasant experience. 

I have a feeling this is going to be like the Wii in a lot of ways.  It is probably going to be hugely popular when it comes out, but if you look at it in a couple years, no one is buying games or playing it much at all.   

[Kwyjibo]

I have a feeling this is going to be like the Wii in a lot of ways.  It is probably going to be hugely popular when it comes out, but if you look at it in a couple years, no one is buying games or playing it much at all.   

Say what?  This is not true of anybody I know that has one.

[dirk]

Maybe you know more people with kids that have them, but almost everyone I know only plays it when they have a party or some kind of gathering.  I know of 5 or 6 people I work with that haven't turned the system on in 5 or 6 months.  There just aren't that many good games for the Wii beyond the Nintendo made games to keep people playing.  It is excellent at being a party system, but I don't think it is that good at being a real gaming system.

I should add that Nintendo makes their money off the sale of the console (as compared to MS and Sony who make most of their money on game sales), so they are fine with this.  But when you have a console that doesn't sell as many games, it is hard to convince third party developers to invest a lot of money to make great games for it.

[Kwyjibo]

Well, I think it's aimed at kids and being a party game platform.

I think most people that have them, think everything but the nintendo based games suck for what they want anyway... I know I do.  Most people that want something else have the MS or PS console as well, and are happy to do so.

So, rather than it being a failure, you're just not the system's market.  Big difference.

[Juliana]

We are also people who take a million years to solve a game...if we ever solve a game.  We're not what you'd call "good" anymore.

We did beat the first Mario Galaxy, but we skipped a whole...solar system or whatever.  The top room on the spaceship star planet thing.  I did beat Super Smash Brothers Mele which was awesome, and I felt all accomplished, but other than that, I can't think of any that we've actually BEAT.  But, we've gotten a lot of party type games, so we like those a lot.  Mario Party is super fun.