Nintendo Wii: It Isn't Hype

For months now, we've been treated to the standard routine. "The new Nintendo isn't as powerful as the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360." As usual, when the skeptics start reaching for things to justify their opinions, they miss the point. There is no question the Nintendo Wii is just as powerful as any other console, and for one simple reason. It's going to completely change video games.

For eons, the game industry has been trying to climb out of a niche it spent billions of dollars building for itself: gamers. Video game systems, ironically enough with the exception of Nintendo systems, have been focused more and more on gamers: faster graphics, faster graphics and oh, look! Faster graphics! Wow. Big surprise.

Not long after releasing the 117th sequel to the first real-time strategy game, it didn't take long for the industry to realize the only people buying their games were wargaming fans and that the market wasn't growing very much. Soon thereafter, the first ultimately unsuccessful attempts to sell games to girls and women began, along with subsequent attempts to promote video games as just another form of entertainment, like television or going to the movies.

But then the industry ran into a wall. Everyone that was making the games was pretty much a wargaming fan, and with the exception of a very few products, the sequels continued.

If games are to become "just another form of entertainment," like television, they're probably going to need more than three channels labeled "faster graphics." This is where the Nintendo Wii is going to change things.

The Nintendo Wii could quite easily find itself at the center of attention at parties and social events, unlike any other video game system. Handheld consoles, other consoles, computers and arcade games, for the most part, are not and will never become the center of a social event, because they do not have a social nature. The only real exception to this might be Dance Dance Revolution, but only because of its similarity to the Nintendo Wii.

As an aside it should be noted the Nintendo Wii is going to have the exact same effect on home video gaming that Dance Dance Revolution had in arcades: it's going to draw a crowd. When you have a crowd, you have a social activity. When you have a social activity, you're much more likely to find someone else present besides one wargamer trying to finish the 15,000th level of Wargame: The Sequel.

All entertainment businesses are built around attracting an audience, and for this reason alone, the Nintendo Wii has far more potential than any other video game system. The power of social interaction is inestimable, and when it is introduced to an industry that already has a massive reservoir of untapped potential and ideas, the results could be incredible.

It's already begun. Almost to a review, everyone who has had any experience with the Nintendo Wii so far has basically said the same thing: Sure, it doesn't have super graphics, but who cares? It's more fun.

Video games more fun? Imagine that.