The Wii60 Expereince

jledgard — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 09:24:00 GMT

I alluded to my purchase of the Nintendo Wii but I really didn't talk about the system itself. The Wii is the ultimate party box as far as I'm concerned for those of you that still meet people in person. The innovation of the Wiimote controller gives the system a universal appeal for games in a way I haven't seen any playstation or Xbox game match.

Gretchen and I spent hours playing Wii sports bowling with her mom over the holidays. This is someone who has no interest in "video games", but when we packed up our Wii she started asking where she could buy one... just to play bowling. We also had a small Festivus dinner over our house and probably sold two of them to the couples that came over... just from playing Wii sports.

There is a huge amount of potential in the Wii that, when playing some of the other games for the system, you can tell hasn't been tapped yet. Zelda probably succeeds simply based on the game itself and would work just as well with a standard controller, but none of the other titles we've played come close to Wii Sports and Wii Sports feels more like a demo than a real game.

The Xbox 360 seems to have a universal appeal as well. It's just that the "universal" doesn't seem to apply to the actual games as much. I'll never get Gretchen to play Halo 3, but she uses it as a Media Center extender almost daily. When they start adding more content to the Video Marketplace I predict we'll also be a regular user there as well. The 360 is also a hit at party's but it's mostly for the photo slideshow and music streaming from the Media PC.

The Wii also misses out on the mass appeal of home media streaming. I love the picture puzzle game, but I have to put photos onto an SD card to get them onto my Wii... despite the fact the Wii comes with a wireless card!

What else do I miss on the Wii? I can't play bowling against my friends online and I don't see hints that Nintendo really cares. The Xbox 360 still takes my vote for best gaming platform if you are flying solo locally and want to play games with real humans online. It's a strange touch that, with the Wii, you can create your own characters (something I would love to see with Xbox Live) and they can "travel" to other Wii machines via a series of tubes... unfortunately they leave you behind!

So my advice is that you really need both a Wii and a 360. There is just nothing on the Wii that compares to Gears of War (and original Live Arcade titles) and there is nothing on the 360 that compares to Wii Sports.

How the Power Outage and a Thief Scored me a Wii

jledgard — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 21:21:00 GMT

Getting some newfangled device, like a Wii, can be a challenge if you work and live in a tech-happy environment like Seattle or Redmond. In the end, losing power for 3+ days was the break I needed to get mine.

On Saturday, December 17th, Gretchen and I where able to get a good night's sleep by staying at a friend's house. I decided that I'd wake up and be at the stores for 7am to score one. I'd heard this worked the weekend before for a couple of people. When I pulled up to the local Target, I discovered a line of over 50 people that had been there since around 4am. 20 people in that line had already heard they probably weren't going to have more than 30 units!

I went across the street to Fred Meyer's. There were only 16 people there and I was up anyway. At 7am the doors opened and the rush was on to the electronics department where the hoard was greeted by an overly plucky sales rep who proclaimed "we have no Wii's" in a sing-songy voice. The hoard scrambled to make plans for the 8am store openings.

I decided to drive myself into the belly of the beast... the Best Buy in Bellevue. I pulled in around 7:20 and the temperature was around 25 degrees fariegnhight. There was a small line... a little too small. Then I noticed a lot of people sleeping in cars in the parking lot. At 7:30 the store manager was nice enough to come out and tell everyone that the folks in the cars had showed up at 3:30am and he gave them all the vouchers he had.

This scene, according to all the cell phone conversations I heard, was being repeated all over the Puget Sound area. Parents who had divided to conquer - and even enlisted the help of local teenagers - were starting to lose hope. I asked the crowd if anyone was going to get a PS3... I was laughed at. One person told me that his family "already had a 360."

I got back in my car and started driving slowly east. I was already awake; what else did I have to do? I started trying to think creatively as if this was a Microsoft interview question. Then, in a flash of Obi-Wan brilliance, I had an image of Joe in my head, who had told me a couple weeks ago ,"What you're going to have to do is find some place that people wouldn't think would stock them. " At the same time I entered a section of the Bellevue grid that had no power. I then wondered if people would neglect the Circuit City that didn't have power. They had.

I pulled into a dark storefront a few minutes before their scheduled opening time. I was person #2. Several cars drove up, looked at the dark store, and drove away. A couple of employees arrived. They didn't know anything except that they would get credit for four hours of work even if the store didn't open as long as the manager knew they were there. I think one of them called the manager to tell him about the line, that had struggled to get to 5 people, had exploded to 50. Fifty people waiting with no apparent hope in front of a store with no power. Person #3 asked me if I had even played one. I had, but he hadn't. He said he didn't even like games, but heard this was different!

At 8:20am a very bundled-up store manager arrived and started counting off from the front of the line. He got to #15 and said, "You'll all get Wii's once we have power!" At 2pm they had power and I picked up my Wii. They didn't have any accessories, but I found an extra Wii-Mote lying around at the Best Buy later that week... while I was waiting for our car window to be repaired since the thieves had busted it to steal Gretchen's purse. I guess I should thank the savages.

Why did I bother writing this down? This is hour #5 at the Houston airport waiting for flights that are canceled amongst an ever growing population of stand-by patrons. It was time for something fun.

scooblog by josh ledgard : Wii

The Wii60 Expereince

How the Power Outage and a Thief Scored me a Wii