Wii Agree

I'm a Nintendo Kid. I remember the moment I saw a NES demo for the first time in a Toys R Us. My brother and I dragged our mom there to buy a new Atari game. And there it was. The Nintendo. The graphics were amazing compared to our stinky old bleep-bloop Atari. We begged for the upgrade and within a couple of months got it. The Atari was instantly relegated to a cardboard box.

There will always be a warm spot somewhere in my memory for the Nintendo brand-name because of those early gaming experiences with Kung Fu, Excitebike, Zelda, Super Mario Bros and the rest. Millions of us are pre-conditioned by our nostalgic feelings to support what Nintendo produces. But the fact is that Nintendo doesn't want us, their original fans. They want our kids and they want our parents, two groups who are either easy to please or have low skill-levels and expectations.

That's my core problem with Nintendo: It will not evolve and maturate with me. Like Michael Jackson, it refuses to grow up and with every generation looks more and more disturbing and unnatural as a result of its pathological pursuit of looking young to attract the young. I want my gaming to evolve and maturate with me. Nintendo has never offered that kind of long-term relationship and I gave up all hope long ago that they ever would.

In fact, it was plain that Nintendo was going to stick with the kids as early as the SNES. My younger brother bought that system while I hastily moved to the Sega Genesis. The divorce between Nintendo and its original fans was made permanent when Sony released its original Playstation. I scoffed at the Candyland Nintendo releases of the 90s. N64? Gamecube? It seemed as though the Gameboy was single-handedly keeping Nintendo afloat for a long time.

And now we have the Wii, which amounts to little more than last-gen hardware and an intriguing, motion-enabled controller. The thing's graphics are laughable compared to the XBOX and PS3. The game library is egregious in exactly the same way Nintendo libraries have always been (shovelware and licensed crap peppered with the odd Mario and Zelda release). Once again, Nintendo has chosen to pander to those who have the lowest standards and simplest demands out of their gaming experiences: The very young. Only this time, they've added another group: The very casual.

Whoop-de-fucking-do. Bully for them.

Meanwhile, we original Nintendo kids must continue to look elsewhere for the quenching of our maturated gaming desires. Thankfully there are excellent options out there, because Nintendo abandoned us a long time ago.

Wii...would like you to blow your American dollars.

People I work with keep calling me and asking me about the Wii. I have a reputation as a nerd, I suppose - by virtue of the fact that I can turn my computer on and log in without incident. This alone makes me stand out. You have to imagine that my parents are proud. "It's all come full circle! We used to let him play 'Wilderness Campaign' on the Frankenstein'ed Apple II+ - now he's a computing genius!" It's true. XP's arcane login scheme won't get the best of me.

I do not exaggerate when I say that a foul-smelling gent who left my current company round-about a year ago called me last week...I hadn't spoken to him since he "quit":

"Hey, you DO still work there!"
"Umm..."
"So uhh, I was wondering. My wife thinks I should get a Wii. Do you think I should get a Wii?"
"...yeah. Totally."
"I knew you'd know! You always were good at that kind of stuff! Thanks, man."

I have a Wii. I got it a few months after launch. I know why - because I couldn't HAVE one. The more often that I walked into (insert major retailer here) and saw that they were sold out, the more I became certain that I had to have one. It's like a girl you crush on or a sold-out concert ticket - it's not your favorite band...and the girl called you an asshole, then made out with your best friend. She's nice though - if you can just get through to her...and yeah, the band's last three albums sucked, but their debut was a classic!

And now some people you work with - people you don't even like - are at the show...and you're not. If they hadn't gotten tickets - if your best friend wasn't at the submarine races with the girl - you'd be at home, asleep...now, you're awake and pining.

And for what? A bunch of mediocre games and bad ports. I WANT Wii games - I go to (insert major retailer here) a few times a month, look over the bad ports and movie cash-ins, and walk home empty-handed. It's not as if I don't know what's going to be in-stock - I do have the interwebs - but still...I go. And leave. With nothing.

So, another guy I work with calls me:

"Dude, I'm getting a new plasma. I really need - my KIDS need - a Wii."
"OK...so get one."
"No dude - I was at GameStop -"
"You went to GameStop? Fuck GameStop. Anyway."
"So...I went to GameStop...and they're like, people are still camping out to get a Wii."
"No. People are not camping out to get a Wii."

People are still camping out to get a Wii.

I didn't know that then - I know now. I got on the interwebs, I hit the usual sorta-geek forums, and discovered that yes, more than a year after release - a year packed with a massively underwhelming library of games - people are still camping out to get a Wii. For the kids, for the parents, for the wife, for...the marketing. "Wii would like to play!" Yes, I know. I would like to play too...just not "Open Season" or "Bee Movie". I can only think that the paucity of quality - or even passable - software is the reason the on-line nerd herd is positively clamoring for "Super Smash Brothers", which sounds...retarded, for lack of a better word: Mario beats up Link! Shamus beats up the Cocker Spaniel from "Nintendogs!" And there's no blood. Wow...that sounds REALLY compelling. I can't wait to get a bunch of 11 year old girls over to my house for some vs. action.

So why are people still camping out to get a Wii? I don't know. They can't afford a PS3? They don't really like video games? Kids Are People Too? I DON'T KNOW. They shouldn't be. YOU shouldn't be. Right now the Wii is potential energy, and like potential energy...it COULD be something massive, something to be reckoned with, but it's not. The Wii is a lightbulb on a broken switch. The Wii is Carl Lewis after a bender.

I speak as someone who has a Wii and has thus far been too cheap to buy a PS3. More and more, I think the Wii is the video game console for people who don't really like video games all that much. The bulk of the Wii library is shovelware, and to date the single most engaging title for the console is the one that comes free with purchase: "Wii Sports."

I like video games. "Wilderness Campaign"!

"Dude...my KIDS need a Wii."

Why? What do they have against video games?