This brings up an interesting question. I wonder whether the type of consumers who have been snatching up all these Wii consoles like crazy will buy many games for it. I would love to see how many people bought a Wii and only have Wii Sports. It will be VERY interesting to see whether these "casual gamers" buy enough games to make the Wii a success for the game developers.

Wii is uncharted territory. There has never been a console that has depended on so-called "casual gamers" to the degree Wii does. You can't read a single thread about the Wii without hearing about how someone's parents, or grandma, or sister, or girlfriend has picked up a videogame for the first time because of the Wii.

I honestly think there is a very good chance that the Wii will have 2 "classes" of buyers: a. the "casual gamers" who buy 2-3 games and that's it, and b. the Nintendo fanatics who buy Nintendo consoles almost exclusively for the first-party games (in other words, the same group who bought the Gamecube and N64).

At any rate, the Wii is a great experiment, and I love it that I can sit back and watch the show unfold :)

Most people just forgot to mention it, but it's was there as well. The GCN had 2.1 MB of framebuffer plus 1MB texture cache.

At the moment, the attach rate is supposedly >4. So that's either most people buying 3 or 4 games for their system, or a few people buying absolutely everything and everyone else just playing Wii Sports and Wii Play (obtained when they bought their second controller)Actually if Wii is all about social gaming, why doesn't it come with two controllers as standard?

Then why did GCN games render in 24-bit RGBA (banding galore bleh) when a 640x480*(32rgba+24z) buffer fits in 2.1MB?

Because that way Nintendo can charge for the extra controller.

Because everyone should own a Wii and then they can bring their own controller to which ever friend's house they are bringing the Wii. Duh. ;)

Also, they might not have been comfortable with a retail package over 300$/euro.

If the X360 is all about live gaming over the 'net, why doesn't it come with wireless networking? Easy: manufacturers tweak features to hit the price points they want.

It's not good or bad; just is.

IMO this article more than adequately proves that the Wii's popularity is not because of the console's raw power. I guess it really turns out that doing something (waving hand to bowl or swing a sword) is more enjoyable to many people than emulating something (pressing A to bowl or swing the sword).

In my case I opted for Wii because it is different, and I'm already into PC gaming for the high-rez high-fidelity stuff. If I'd grown up as a console gamer I'd probably choose X360 or PS3, but I'm not.

:???:

Errr...

Because you can play online with a wired setup..?

Because wireless networking is slow(er)?

Because LIVE is only a subset of the vision the console stands for..?

Flawed counter-arguement i'd say..

Well you can buy another controller for the wii, probably cheaper than trying to buy and run a long network cable, or having someone drill your walls.

Even old 802.11b is faster than 10Mb cable can run

The wii controller is only a subset of the vision the console was made for. (ease of use, simple fun gaming, etc)


Its a valid counter argument.

For starters a network cable will cost you about £5 pounds (30m) & it costs nothing to run it along the skirting boards or under the carpet..

Who uses ethernet slower than 100Mb/s these days?

The Wii controller is the absolute embodiment of the vision of the console.. without it do you honestly think the console would be where it is today..??

Valid... But flawed..