Wii Was the Wii unjustifiably underrated?

[Damien Lee]

I'm a huge fan of the Nintendo Wii, waggle controls and all. We all know that it did incredibly well in the sales department, particularly during it's launch phase. However, there was an outcry by many hardcore gamers about it's games library. Apparently there weren't enough grey / brown shooters and other Call of Duty clones to appease these people.

The Wii was never meant to be like the Xbox 360 or PS3. It stood on it's own and was a unique, compelling alternative for gamers that wanted something different. On a personal level, I was very happy with the games released on the Wii - Sin & Punishment 2 is one particular game that I still play religiously to this very day.

There are many that bashed the Wii, saying that it's a kid's console or that the are no good games for it. I beg to differ, if one investigates a little they will find tons of great games made for this system.

Generally, I feel that the Wii was unjustifiably underrated. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[CemeteryGates23]

I must admit I'm with the crowd of "hardcore gamers" that didn't like the Wii. Just before leaving the country to live abroad, my sister-in-law generously gave us her Wii with three games (Mini Ninjas, Rock Band Metal Trax [I'm a metalhead, for what it's worth], and Guitar Hero 3) so I was excited as an owner of a PS3 and X360 to complete the generation's set and while I wasn't very excited about the games, I knew I'd enjoy my old GameCube games as well as being able to get Smash Bros. Brawl, Twilight Princess, No More Heroes, and a few other games that had caught my attention on Wii.
In reality I've been in a financial position that allows me a very limited budget for gaming for a few years now (but that's a topic for another day! ), so I wasn't able to pick up these games and really get into the Wii.
Later on, a good friend of mine let me borrow Brawl, Twilight Princess and the Wii's Paper Mario, but honestly I had his games for 3 months and only played the intro to Twilight Princess and a little Brawl. I was very busy with life in general, but I also made more time for my PS3 and PC at the time, than I did for the games I borrowed.

Quite frankly and in retrospect, the very thought of turning on the console and having to carefully aim at what I wanted to do on the menu was a turn-off, so as you can deduct from that, I never did really appreciate the motion control thing, and for what it's worth, I lost respect for Sony and Microsoft when they came out with their motion controls. It was not only a cheap shot at riding Nintendo's innovative wave, but they made a silly copy of a concept I never liked.

Now that I'm so in love with my Wii U I've been thinking more and more about going back to my Wii. If nothing else at the moment, to get back into some GameCube games, and to check out what my friend told me, it being the Wii's vastly superior Virtual Console catalogue, with the option to take it to my Wii U. Anyone know anything about that, by chance?

 

[Donkey Punch]

I think it was unjustifiably overrated. They basically changed the GameCube's shape, bundled it with a remote, and called it a new console, which sold like hot cakes because of Wii Sports.

I have no problem with Wii being a kids system, just like I had no problem with GameCube being a kids system. But it wasn't next-gen by any stretch of imagination.

 

[CemeteryGates23]

I'm never convinced by the argument that Nintendo's consoles are kids' consoles.
Sure, I had a NES, SNES and N64 as a kid, but also a PS1 and access to a Sega Genesis.
I had both a GameCube and an Xbox, and sure, Nintendo had their IP (which is more "general public" than for kids, I'd say, but definitely not adult-oriented), but the rest of my games were Die Hard Vendetta, the Resident Evil series, Bloody Roar... not exactly EC or even E-rated games. I didn't have them, but there were also Killer7, Eternal Darkness, Def Jam, Metal Gear: Twin Snakes, Soul Calibur, TimeSplitters, etc...
I read an article once that claimed M-rated games halves from GameCube to Wii, but there's still games like MadWorld, No More Heroes, Scarface, Tenchu Shadow Assassin, Cursed Mountain, Fatal Frame, Manhunt 2, Sniper Elite...

Even then, there's lots of games that transcend the age rating, that are not necessarily targeting an age demographic. In my opinion, the Zelda series (with some exceptions, of course) is a very good example of this. And further, not every game with an age demographic necessarily makes it difficult for it to appeal to the general public.

However, I do agree that Nintendo has been lagging behind in hardware capabilities for a while now, and they would definitely benefit from investing in that area. I've said it before here a bunch of times, but if the NX came out with at least the PS4's specs (and by the time it comes out, it could even blow it out of the water), and therefore could run the multiplatform games, they'd become a fierce (if not dominant) competitor for Sony and Microsoft.