Home History Wii Remote Wii Menu Demographic Launch Reception/Sales

The Wii has received generally positive reviews. The system was well received after its exhibition at E3 2006. At the event, Nintendo’s console won the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show and Best Hardware. In the December 2006 issue of Popular Science, the console was named a Grand Award Winner in home entertainment. Spike TV’s Video Games Award cited the Wii’s breakthrough technology. The system was also chosen as one of PC World magazine’s 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year. In 2009, IGN named the Wii the 10th greatest console of all time (out of 25).

The Wii’s success caught third-party developers by surprise, leading to apologies for the quality of their early games. At the same time, criticism of the Wii Remote and Wii hardware specifications had surfaced.

Game designer and The Sims creator Will Wright shared his thoughts on the Wii in the context of the seventh console generation: “The only next gen system I’ve seen is the Wii – the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement. But the Wii feels like a major jump – not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic.”

The Wii is seen as more physically demanding than other game consoles. Some Wii players have experienced a form of tennis elbow, known as “Wiiitis”. A study published in the British Medical Journal stated that Wii players use more energy than they do playing sedentary computer games. While this energy increase may be beneficial to weight management, it was not an adequate replacement for regular exercise. A case study published in the American Physical Therapy Association’s journal, Physical Therapy, focused on use of the Wii for rehabilitation in a teenager with cerebral palsy. It is believed to be the first published research demonstrating physical-therapy benefits from use of the gaming system.

By 2008, two years after the Wii’s release, Nintendo acknowledged several limitations and challenges with the system (such as the perception that the system catered primarily to a “casual” audience and was unpopular among “core” gamers). The Globe and Mail, in suggesting why Nintendo posted a record loss of $926 million for the initial six months of its 2011–2012 fiscal year, blamed the Wii’s design for being “short-sighted”. The Wii initially enjoyed phenomenal success because it was inexpensive (due to its being less sophisticated than its competitors) and introduced a “gaming gimmick”. However, this approach meant that the Wii’s hardware soon became outdated and could not keep up long-term.

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