One way to describe a casual gamer is someone who doesn’t own a dedicated gaming device but only plays on multi-purpose devices like a phone or a laptop. This definition was shattered by the Nintendo Wii, the most popular home console of the late 2000s.
After falling behind the PlayStation and especially the PlayStation 2 with the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube, Nintendo began development on a new console under the codename GameCube Next (later called “Revolution”). The new console would be designed to be compact and affordable like its predecessor, but its gameplay experience needed to be very different if Nintendo wanted to survive in the market of TV-connected consoles.
Nintendo’s choice was motion controls. Two-dimensional motion controls already existed on the PlayStation 2 with the EyeToy camera but weren’t very intuitive or engaging.
The Wii used an accelerometer to replicate real-world movement in 3D games. With this new way to play games, it captured demographics that the PlayStation and Xbox couldn’t even dream of.
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Space Matters
The Nintendo Wii was finally revealed at E3 2005, months before the Xbox 360 made it to market. The Wii supported physical GameCube games and controllers and could download games released for the NES, Super NES and Nintendo 64, the older consoles that were rivaled by Sega.
The Wii was applauded for being smaller than each of those consoles. Compared to the Xbox 360, which also had an external power adapter, it weighted about a third, but that size came with a tradeoff.
While both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 relied on massive cooling solutions to run their multi-core processors at 3.2GHz, Nintendo’s console packed a single-core CPU running at 729MHz. It had 64MB of system memory, compared to the PlayStation 3’s 256MB. While competitors could run relatively simple games at 1080p, the Wii couldn’t go over 480p (640 × 480).
Its hardware capabilities were closer to those of the original Xbox that arrived five years earlier. It also couldn’t house a hard disk, relying on 512MB of flash memory and SD cards for expansion.
But being less capable than its direct competitors wasn’t a serious problem for the Wii at first. The ultra-popular PlayStation 2 had just been succeeded and couldn’t be ignored by developers, so they didn’t need to make games less demanding just for the Wii. In addition, most people had 480p TVs, so support for a higher resolutions wasn’t yet necessary.
Left to right: the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. Image: Dave Carter
Let’s also not forget about the reactions when the Revolution’s controller was showcased at the Tokyo Game Show that year. The audience remained silent. The controller looked like a TV remote. How much could it do when held in one hand? Well, thanks to an infrared sensor, it worked like a handheld mouse. Getting infrared to work in many lighting conditions was the reason it took Nintendo longer to reveal the controller than the console itself.
More significantly, thanks to its shape, it could emulate anything with a handle, from a sword to a fishing rod. The same couldn’t be said about the PlayStation 3 controller, which reportedly added motion controls at the last minute to look better next to the Wii.
For more complex games, the Wii controller could be wired to the “nunchuck-style” add-on, which had its own accelerometer as well as an analog stick.
Shift in Motion
Nintendo’s latest console name was revealed in 2006 to be Wii – a misspelled “we” with the ii looking like two people. The name was controversial at first because it was indistinguishable from the word “we” when spoken, and because it wasn’t as informative as Revolution. Nintendo probably anticipated this, because it announced the name well before E3, so as not to distract from the product itself.
The Wii was launched in the U.S. later that year, two days after the PlayStation 3, for $250. The original model was only available in white, despite its E3 appearances suggesting otherwise.
Thanks to the modest hardware, the console was sold at a profit, while the Xbox 360 and PS3 were sold at a loss with a 20GB hard disk for $399 and $500, respectively.
The Wii and another popular device from the same era. Image: Mike Prince
Nintendo spent over $200 million marketing the Wii during that first year, mostly toward parents. Within a week, the Wii sold almost 500,000 units, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was sold separately but purchased by over 80% of buyers alongside the console.
Yet, the Wii’s real killer app was the one game that came bundled with it (everywhere outside of Japan).
Wii Sports was a simple game that let players compete in baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, and boxing, but thanks to the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, it was incredibly intuitive. It was a game that kids could play with their parents, and older gamers with their girlfriends or wives. It was even used for physical therapy across North America. The bowling game also became a hit at retirement homes.
The Wii Remote came with a strap to prevent excited players from throwing it onto the TV, and within weeks Nintendo replaced it with a stronger one. Injuries caused by excessive playing were nicknamed Wii-itis or “Wii knee.” In Japan, Wii Sports was the best-selling video game of 2007 with 1.9 million copies.
The Wii’s second-biggest hit of the year was a controversial one.
That generation of consoles marked a shift in game distribution. Older and smaller games could be downloaded, but AAA games were still exclusive to physical disks.
Wii Play was a collection of 9 mini-games as simple as you can imagine but sold on physical disks alongside the Wii Remote for $10 more than the Remote alone. It remained on the NPD monthly top 10 list for years, selling 28 million units and highlighting the popularity of local multiplayer on the Wii.
Clearly most Wii owners were not going to miss out on more Wii Sports-style games that came with a “bonus” control included.
Wii Play’s mini-games included a Duck Hunt-style shooting range, Laser Hockey, Table Tennis, Billiards, Fishing, and Tanks!, a top-down combat game similar to the Atari game Combat.
The Wii Remote was also utilized by Nintendo’s more traditional games. Super Mario Galaxy was one of the best-reviewed games of all time, featuring tiny planets with surreal gravity and a mouse-like shooting mechanic. Mario Kart Wii was bundled with the Wii Wheel case for the Wii Remote and sold 37 million units.
Wii Fit was seemingly created to address the claim that Wii Sports didn’t burn as many calories as actual sports. It was bundled with the Wii Balance Board and featured mini-games that used the player’s entire body as a motion controller. The original version sold almost 23 million units in two years, and the enhanced Wii Fit Plus brought total sales up to 44 million.
Nintendo released the MotionPlus attachment for the Wii Remote alongside Wii Sports Resort in 2009. The attachment included a gyroscope to determine more complex movements, such as swinging and tilting the Remote at the same time.
The Wii Remote was replaced a year later with the Wii Remote Plus, which had the same capability built in. Wii Fit Plus, Wii Sports Resort, and the console were endorsed by the American Heart Association in exchange for a $1.5 million donation from Nintendo.
Moving On
Wii sales started to drop in 2010. Bigger, HD TVs were becoming common, making the same Wii games look worse. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was considered even better than its predecessor but only sold 7.4 million copies compared to the original game’s nearly 13 million.
Not coincidentally, game developers stopped supporting the outdated PlayStation 2, and didn’t want to limit their games just for the Wii. That meant the Wii stopped getting third-party AAA games, unless it was a completely different game using the same name.
By then, Sony and Microsoft had created their own solutions for 3D motion control, perhaps motivated by the success of Just Dance on the Wii. The PlayStation Move was essentially a Wii Remote with an RGB light bulb for detection by the EyeToy’s successor, the PlayStation Eye. The Microsoft Kinect used infrared projectors and detectors to enable spatial motion control with no handheld accessory.
The Wii was succeeded in 2012 by the Wii U, which supported all Wii controllers as well as its own touchscreen-based gamepad. However, it failed due to poor branding and marketing that made it look like an expensive accessory for the aging Wii. The Wii was discontinued in 2013, having sold more than 100 million units, which were probably used by many more people than that.
Nintendo’s next console, the Switch, was launched in 2017, featuring a TV-connected dock and detachable controllers that could work like the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. The Switch Lite, released two years later, was a handheld-only device with non-detachable controllers, turning Wii-like games into a niche.
Ring Fit Adventure, a spiritual successor to Wii Fit, was released in late 2019, just in time for the pandemic, and has sold 15 million units. Nintendo Switch Sports was launched in 2022, selling 13 million copies.
Motion controllers are considered ideal for VR gaming, but VR, in general, has not broken into the mainstream the way the Wii did. For modern versions of Just Dance, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles rely on a smartphone as a motion controller.
We wouldn’t be surprised if the upcoming Switch 2 offers a screen-less version with non-detachable controllers that will push the legacy of the Wii back into the mainstream. But even if it doesn’t, the Wii clearly marked an era in casual gaming that Nintendo brought to life. Whatever the case may be, the Wii will be remembered by many as the only gaming console they’ve ever owned.
