Hobbies And Interests
History
In 1985, Japanese electronics manufacturer, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System, or "NES," which introduced gamers to popular icons such as Mario and Zelda. Since then, Nintendo, like its competitors, have worked furiously to improve graphics and appeal among gamers.
In 2004, Nintendo stunned the gaming world by introducing the idea for a gaming console that went in a radically new direction. Instead of improving gaming horsepower through vastly-improved graphics and ever more complex games, Nintendo decided that a large segment of the population still had not gotten into video games and that its new platform, called the "Revolution," would alter that trend.
Significance
The president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, said at the demo launch of the "Revolution," in 2005 that his company could simplify the standard game controller and alter it in such a way that moving the controller around during a game would not only be encouraged, but necessary to play games. The name of the project was changed from Nintendo Revolution to Wii just prior to its release. Upon its official release in the United States, Japan, South America, and Australia, the Wii quickly became the hottest gaming console on the market. The demand was so high, some secondary market charged $400 or more for the $250 console.
Function
Satoru Iwata noticed that when playing video games, inexperienced players did two things. First, they moved the controller around, trying to get the character on screen to move faster. Second, they grew frustrated with the complex melding of buttons, joysticks, and triggers that formed the standard controller. The Wii, he determined, would address both those problems. First, the remote (which is Wii's controller) was simplified to one large button on the top, one trigger on the bottom and a four direction analogue controller on the top, just below the large button. The remote also senses movement in three dimensional space, requiring players to move about in order to interact with the games.
Types
The types of games offered were also altered in order to appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike. Some of the titles Nintendo offered for the Wii (and sometimes bundled with the Wii) were basic sports games. Wii Sports, for instance, offered bowling, baseball, tennis, golf, and boxing on one disk. The movements of the controllers determined actions in the game and were intentionally left simple. The idea was to entice non-players to give the console a chance and to encourage non-gamers to continue playing. For example, Nintendo donated hundreds of Wii systems to rest homes and retirement centers all over the United States where, reportedly, bowling is the most popular sport.
Considerations
Satoru Iwata and Nintendo also did not forget their dedicated gaming fans, bringing out titled directly from Nintendo or through other software developers, that would appeal to their gaming fan base. Old titles were re-imagined for the Wii and older Nintendo GameCube games were able to be played on the Wii.
Nintendo continues to balance traditional games with new uses for the controller or even new controllers entirely. Wii Mario Kart places the Wii remote in a steering wheel-shaped controller holder and allowed the players to "drive" the cart as if it were a real car. Nintendo Fit uses a balance-sensing platform to guide players through various Yoga exercises. The Wii "Zapper" is a gun-shaped controller holder that accommodates the Wii remote and it's "nunchuck" accessory in order to play a crossbow shooting simulator called Link's Crossbow. All of these controllers were initially developed by Nintendo's design laboratory in Japan, but were tested world-wide.