Wii want more!

It is coming up to a year since I bought my Wii to fill the Christmas gaming void left by my RRoD XBox 360. Having always steered clear of Nintendo hardware, I had finally given in the the cutesy world of Mario and his friends. One of the biggest problems I had with Nintendo was that they constantly churned out the same old characters such as Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda.

Now however, Nintendo seemed to be trying something completely different. The Wii promised a new era of gaming with its Motion sensors and accelerometers giving life to innovative gameplay instead of ever increasingly realistic shooters and racing sims. In the beginning it did deliver. Wii Sports was great fun, for 30 minutes. WarioWare was a riot, for about an hour. Luckily I had Super Mario Galaxy to keep me happy and content until my 360 was repaired in the new year.  Since then the only Wii game of any real interest for me was Mario Kart.  I had never been a big fan of the hugely popular racing game but thought I would give it a shot, especially with the steering wheel controls. It was ok. Not great. Not very exciting. Just ok. Exactly like every other MK I have played over the last decade, except the steering was a bit different (though not actually better IMHO).

After that, I stopped playing my Wii. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Every now and again I’d take a walk into the Game store to see what new and nothing seems to change. Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Zelda and the like are still in the top 10, still selling at full price. You get the odd new game of interest but most of them are cross platform titles that probably run a lot nicer on my PS3 or dodgy old 360.  OK, Wii Fit was a big release for Nintendo and I tried hard to get one when it was released. Try as I might, all stores were sold out for weeks, until I eventually lost interest. After the hype had died down, £70 seemed an awful lot of money for a set of scales.

We are constantly bombarded with tales of how the Wii is outselling every other console by 10s of thousands of units every month. I’d be interested to see what the figures are in terms of game sales. It just seems like the trickle of new Wii games are either cross platform titles with a few Wii-mote gimic controls or strange Japanese titles aimed at teaching kids and non gamers how to cook or fish. The Wii was supposed to be a revolution in gaming but all I see is a cheap lump of white plastic gathering dust next to my PS3.

Come on Nintendo. Pull your finger out!