The Wii has been on the market for over 3 months and sales are better than ever. At the time of writing this article you still cannot walk into ANY store and purchase a Wii. To obtain my Wii I had to depend on a friend who has a friend who works at Costco in San Francisco. The Wii is a “GREAT” system that proves to a degree that games are not all about “eye candy” as the motion sensing technology has proven to be worth its weight in gold (and then some). I love playing Tennis, Golf and Bowling via Wii Sports as these games feel nature with absolutely no learning curve what-so-ever.

But unfortunately there are NO other games even worth playing on the Wii as none of the games have good motion controls. Red Steel has horrible turning, Zelda is a damn bore as you hardly use any real motion until later in the game (after you are sick of reading text) and games like Call of Duty 3 are nice but have flawed gameplay thanks to rushing their implementation of motion in the game. Even the much hyped “Wii Play” turned out to be a Nintendo “turd” comprised of lackluster games that require to much precision accuracy. Considering that “Wii Play” is a Nintendo 1st party game, Nintendo should be worried (a lot).

I picked up SSX Blur a few days ago and my unhappiness with Wii support has grown from bad to worse. SSX Blur is a good example of taking the simple Wii controllers and complicating the hell out of them (thanks EA BIG). Unless you run through the tutorial several times and or memorize the controls via the manual, you are screwed! None of the actions are common sense actions like you have with Tennis or Golf. Grabs require you to hold a button on the Nunchuk and then turn the Nunchuk in strange positions to achieve grabs. Flips and Spins are ridiculous to execute as the controls do not always response to the motion. I found that the motion had to be exact to even get the move to work 50+ percent of the time. Then once you finally get some flip or spin action you struggle to land the move correctly resulting in total frustration. If developers head down this path of complicated controls, the Wii will lose it’s appeal with the “common masses” (casual gamers, grandparents, parents, etc, etc) and Nintendo will find itself in a world of trouble with 10’s of millions of consoles on the market and NO games being sold.

The first week I had my Wii I played every night and enjoyed myself. But now I am back to playing my XBOX 360 “MUCH” more than the Wii which brings me to Nintendo’s other problem: NO ONLINE PLAY. Apparently Nintendo still thinks the online market needs to grow before they jump in. It must be really “bright and sunny” in the imaginary world where Nintendo Executives live because online play is now expected from most titles delivered to the market and I am really annoyed that one cannot play Wii Sports Online! The most fun I have with Wii Sports is when I play with a good friend of mine who drops by a couple of times a week (my 12 year old hates the Wiimote and Nunchuk). Like Microsoft says: “It is good to play together”, and it is so true in this day and age as there is no competition like “human competition”. The crap that Nintendo tries to pass as an online service is a joke. Who really needs to power on their Wii to read the news? And the Wii Store is ok but you really need the classic controller to play the games which will set you back 39.00 (or more) if you do not have a Gamecube controller.

Here is my quick open letter to Nintendo: DEAR NINTENDO, Console Online play is and has been HERE for quite a while (since the launch of XBOX LIVE). Please get more than half a clue and get on the ball, (pretty please) or we will abandon you (with the quickness).

At this point Nintendo’s only hope is the inclusion of ONLINE play and upcoming games such as Metroid Prime, Harry Potter, Prince of Persia (03/20) and Mario Party. Hopefully theses games will have solid intuitive controls and not become a burden to play or Nintendo will fall from 2nd to 3rd place in the console war that has barely begun.

Has Nintendo figured out that the “Honeymoon” is OVER?!

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Editor - www.hidef.com

"True adaptability involves changing ones self to meet ones environment, not changing ones environment to meet ones needs" - Species8472

It would be a huge screwup if Nin didnt make Mario Party online. Practially unacceptable.