What is the Nintendo Wii?

The Nintendo Wii is the successor to the Nintendo Gamecube, but with a variety of enhancements and improvements. It was released just before the holidays in 2006, and has had rather dramatic initial success and a large number of very positive reviews.

The most talked-about new feature of the Nintendo Wii is its motion-sensitive controller, called the Wii Remote or Wiimote. This new controller allows players to control the action on the screen by using physical gestures instead of just pressing buttons. Games like tennis and golf, for example, actually require players to physically swing the controller as if it were a tennis racket or golf club. By doing so, they can cause the game to react right along with their movements. Many early players of these games have experienced tiredness after playing because of the amount of physical activity involved!

The Nintendo Wii also has a number of other new features, including the Wii Store, which is an online service allowing owners of the Wii to purchase older Nintendo games which run in a "Virtual Console" on the new machines. The Wii also offers a variety of "channels" including news and weather as part of the machine's startup screen.The Wii also supports wireless networking along with the popular Opera web browser, and has a photo application as well.

Early sales numbers suggest Nintendo may have accomplished quite a lot with their new system already, and with a number of new games sure to expand the universe of possible designs, the Nintendo Wii may be a worthy contender for top video game console.