Wii

Ever since the Wii was supposed to be in the stores here in America, I have been asking at my local Best Buy if they have any in stock. It finally paid off during my last visit, when one of the staff there who remembered I kept asking, remarked that they currently had three in stock. Of course I thought they were joking, because this was the VERY FIRST time I had NOT asked about it. But sure enough, there were three on the shelf. As negotiation* over accessories began, the others were snapped up by passing families.

Buying extra controllers and chargers (and of course a couple of games) brought the price up from the standard $250, to unmentionable levels. You do get one set of controllers with the console, but right now $60 gets you another set of controllers. Being the console that supposedly brings non-gamers into gaming, only having one set in the box, means you have to add that $60 to the $250 before you even start to think of all those 'must have' accessories for it. Ker-ching!

I plonked down the bucks for a 4 Wiimote recharge station, that comes with 4 rechargeable battery packs. So you don't have to keep buying two AA batteries for each one, or even worse, buying expensive rechargeables and charger**. If you do buy this one (which the Best Buy dude tells me I need because the Wiimotes eat through batteries at fearsome rates) you can't leave the included rubber jackets on because they obscure the charging contacts on the back. Instead of a battery pack, you get 4 replacement battery doors, with the rechargeable packs molded into them. So when you want to charge your Wiimote, you just put it in the charging base. When seated they are quite wobbly, but the normally blue light on each slot turns red until the charge is complete. It is totally worth it for the overall blue neon lit round base.***

Next morning the game disk slot was pulsing and flashing blue. I suspected it to be speaking to the recharging base about something to do with nanobotic** legs. This wasn't true. I had connected the Wii to my wireless network so it could get updates etc, and it had been gathering messages from the Nintendo mother ship. This blue flashing was to tell me there were unread messages, and there were a LOT. Nothing of note, but all to do with the strange Wii 'channels' I had looked at. One was a voting channel, where they asked you simple questions like "If you won the lottery would you still work?" or "Do you turn your PC off at night?". You could answer them, and then predict what you considered to be the most popular answer. Remember kids, popular rarely equals right. Not to give too much away, but more people said they WOULD continue to work if they won the lottery! So the blue flashing was letting me know there were more questions to answer, and poll results from others were in. One handy feature for anyone who needs to make sure younger household players are not spending too much time with the Wii, is the daily calendar of what, who, and how long the different members of the household have been playing.

One REALLY smart move, was to charge for the internet browser. The Wii has no user log in as such. You can create a personal character, called a Mii, which you can model on yourself, and it actually appears in the games you play. So when you start a game you say, I want to use my Mii. The score and records for that Mii change accordingly. So if your kid plays a lot one day, it shows up in the daily messages. Also the mere fact of charing 500 points**** for the web browser, means this is one less piece of network connected equipment you have to worry about your children using (so much). There are parental controls but to use them, you have to point at the code on screen***** and that's going to last about three seconds when the kid finally persuades you to let them get online for something.

Most of the Wii games were great fun, just flinging your arms about in some vaguely realistic manner depending on what activity you are doing (cow riding still to be confirmed), is all great fun. So far nothing broken although not for lack of trying on a nearby table top, chair, and a stunt breakaway lamp. Shall I save grandma's ashes, or get that backhand in properly?

If you can find one, it's a must buy. If you can't find one, pretend.





All the Wii hardware so far reminds me of medical supplies from the future.
*Not actually any negotiation. Just the heart stopping realization of the cash total at the checkout, which you feebly try to cover up. Of course, everyone ELSE in line knows exactly how much their pile o' booty is going to come to, and will scoff at your inability to add up. Even though they too are locked in the Sauron like gaze of consumerism.

**Which you instantly lose all the batteries after leaving them unattended for more than 2 hours. Rechargeable batteries share the same hyperspace as balls of string, retractable measuring tapes, rolls of sticky tape, and little headphones. I think they make them from special nanobotic plastics, which grow little legs in the dark, and just go home.

***If you are 8.

****1 point, 1 cent. Did you hear that Microsoft? PS3 owners are even better off because they just get the price marked on screen. Microsoft Points (with which to purchase Xbox content) have a algorithm known only to people long dead, as to how many points is one dollar.

*****Something Microsoft DID do right, by making the pass code, be a sequence of buttons you press on the Xbox360 controller. With the Wii you have to enter on your 8 feet wide TV screen, with exactly those people you don't want to know it, er... knowing it.