Okay, so maybe this is a little off topic, but heck, it’s my space. Anyway, you’ve heard the hype about the next generation of gaming systems: Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii - and you can find tons of reviews about the merits of each. But from my own soapbox, I wanted share my opinions as a 40 something father of two and a self confessed techie.
First a little of my background. My father brought home our first electronic game back in the 70’s…you know, Pong. Next in my life came the Atari 2600 console, Commodore 64 (remember King’s Quest) and our Apple II. In the late 80’s through the 90’s along came the truly modern game consoles (in addition to good PC games); I had a Nintendo NES, then the SuperNES, Sega Genesis, Sony Playstation 1 (PS1). By the time the PS2 came along, I was already to a point in my life were spending countless hours gaming became counter productive. So after my PS1, the only game system I invested in was my Sony PSP for those long airplane rides.
So here we are in 2006 with work, two young kids and a couple of mortgages. Who’s got time for fun and games? That’s what we thought until we say the first promo for it (pushed to our Tivo box), the Nintendo Wii. My wife and I decided that we had to get one. What sold us was the simplistic G rated game titles (okay for young kids), but mostly the interactive controller…the Wiimote as they like to call it. What struck me right away was the social potential of the Wii - here was a video game that would be great to play with others, and one where you’d have to get your fat ass off the couch. Don’t get me wrong, if money were no object, I am drawn to the technical capabilities of the Xbox and PS3, heck, I would love to play Final Fantasy 68 (or whatever they’re up to now) but now I can’t afford to burn away hours of time playing a game like that. But instead of sitting in a dark room playing video games all by yourself, the Wii is very much a great party tool.
Have you tried to buy a Wii? If so, you know that you just can’t walk into a store and buy one. That damm Wii has proved to be so popular that getting one is harder than playing one. We finally got ours from Toys R Us; we saw the ad in the Sunday paper, then flew down to the store before they opened so we could get a ticket to buy one.
After one month of ownership, the Wii has proved to be a rousing hit in our house. The social aspects of the console can’t be ignored as it brings the whole family together for some good clean fun. Young and old (my 80 year old aunt started to get really competitive in bowling…talking trash and everything!), and people who otherwise were never drawn to video games have fun with this thing. We even plan to have a Wii tournament at my daughter’s first birthday party next month where I’ll hook up the Wii to a video projector so we can play on a BIG screen.
Playing four man tennis, the boys score!
Aside from games, you really need to hook up your Wii to your wireless network to take full advantage of what it can do. With the Wii’s built in WiFi, I was able to get it on my wireless router within seconds. Once online, you can get weather, news, shop the Wii online store (where you can buy and download many of the old NES, Sega and SuperNES games) and participate in a cute online polling tool. There is also a web browser built in to surf web pages although it’s really hard to enter text into the thing. Looking ahead, I hope Nintendo plans to extend the online capabilities of the Wii to extend into the games themselves like with the Xbox or PS3.
As a parent, I’m not totally thrilled with my kids staring at the TV for too long. I would be happier to see them play outside or read books. But come on, I know we’re not living in the stone age. So if they’re going to play games, I’d rather see them get up and move around. Even my nearly 4 year old son can play competitively in some of the sports games…heck he can even sometimes beat me outright in bowling and tennis. Even better, he actually works up a good sweat playing the Wii because you really do have to stand up and be active. The more you emulate the actual motions of what you’re playing (think about how you play tennis), the better you will play. But as a parent, I will say that we no longer allow our son to play the Wii before bed as it gets him too amped to sleep.
One parents verdict: Get a Wii, if you can find one. Remember to let you kids play too, just limit their playing time to something age appropriate.
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