Wii Sports is one of the most interesting games that I have come across my gaming 'career'. I hated it with a passion when it was first announced....I just couldn't believe this was one of the 'flagship' titles for Nintendo's upcoming new console. I was so disappointed that I made a promise not to ever buy a Wii (big reaction considering I've been a lifelong Nintendo fan) because of this stupid looking game and its gimmicky new controller.
Fast forward to November of 2006 and I pulled a last-minute change of mind simply because I wanted to play Zelda Twilight Princess on launch day after watching the reveal trailer (rationale was to might as well get the Wii system to play the best version of Zelda TP). After standing in line for hours I finally arrived back to my dorm in the morning of November 19, 2006 all ready to lock myself in my room and get lost in Hyrule but my roommates insisted that we should play Wii Sports before I got myself lost in Zelda TP. And so we tried Wii Sports and 4 or 5 hours laters we were still playing the game and having a blast.
Wii Sports was literally the perfect pack-in title and one of the best life lessons of "don't judge a book by its cover" that I ever received. This is the perfect game to showcase the abilities of the Wii and its wiimote motion controls with a perfect pick-up and-play nature that can be enjoyed by everyone in the same room, regardless of gaming skills or experience.
I think what I respect the most about Wii Sports is not the fact that it proved me wrong, but the fact that it went ahead and disrupted the entire gaming industry. This game was solely responsible for both Microsoft and Sony spending hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D and eventually products that aimed to achieve a similar concept and level of success with their Kinect and PS Move products. Complete insanity and the perfect showcase that brute power and technology cannot be the sole reason for the success of gaming hardware. Leave it to Nintendo to, once again, prove everyone wrong, including their own fanbase.
Fast forward to November of 2006 and I pulled a last-minute change of mind simply because I wanted to play Zelda Twilight Princess on launch day after watching the reveal trailer (rationale was to might as well get the Wii system to play the best version of Zelda TP). After standing in line for hours I finally arrived back to my dorm in the morning of November 19, 2006 all ready to lock myself in my room and get lost in Hyrule but my roommates insisted that we should play Wii Sports before I got myself lost in Zelda TP. And so we tried Wii Sports and 4 or 5 hours laters we were still playing the game and having a blast.
Wii Sports was literally the perfect pack-in title and one of the best life lessons of "don't judge a book by its cover" that I ever received. This is the perfect game to showcase the abilities of the Wii and its wiimote motion controls with a perfect pick-up and-play nature that can be enjoyed by everyone in the same room, regardless of gaming skills or experience.
I think what I respect the most about Wii Sports is not the fact that it proved me wrong, but the fact that it went ahead and disrupted the entire gaming industry. This game was solely responsible for both Microsoft and Sony spending hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D and eventually products that aimed to achieve a similar concept and level of success with their Kinect and PS Move products. Complete insanity and the perfect showcase that brute power and technology cannot be the sole reason for the success of gaming hardware. Leave it to Nintendo to, once again, prove everyone wrong, including their own fanbase.