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Throughout the history of the Nintendo Wii, it has been met with negative reaction. It first started at E3 2005 when Nintendo showed the, then called Revolution, to the final “coming out” party of E3 2006. Whether or not it’s because of the controller being radically different to the competition or the strange (but in my opinion, awesome) name, the Wii is going to change the way that gamers view games. At E3 2006, the lines, the software and the presentation that Nintendo presented exhibited that they are set out to prove that the Wii will be what Nintendo has been trying to prove: Playing = Believing.

Even when the Nintendo Wii was first announced at E3, although it had a strong showing, it was one thing that many gamers found disheartening: the console specifications. Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo’s media relations guru, prior to Wii’s unveiling, mentioned that the Wii would be roughly two to three times more powerful than the Nintendo GameCube. This came as a shock to most of the Nintendo fanbase because of how much juice Microsoft and Sony were both pumping into their consoles whereas Nintendo went the complete opposite. Satoru Iwata then went to say that they weren’t putting all their assets into the graphics chips, thanks to the stagnant gameplay that most genres are succumbing too, and said that when we do see the graphics for the system, we would say “wow.”

When the controller was first shown at the Tokyo Game Show in 2005 many people believed that Nintendo had gone completely off the deep end. Who would have thought that when Nintendo was hiding the revolutionary aspect of their controller that they were hiding a remote with gyroscopic controls. Of course being the over dramatic fan boys that most Nintendo supporters are, they immediately thought that this was the final nail in the coffin for the once great company. Of course a lot of these speculations were easily laid to rest when most of the major game publications had had hands on with the actual controller. According to them, at the time, the controller had shown great potential as to what Nintendo had been spouting for almost half a year. Of course the technology wasn’t perfected and most of the demos were not final games. Sadly most of the publications thought of the controller as no more than a gimmick.

Flash forward to the Game Developers Conference in 2006 and more bad news comes to all when a word of how graphically limiting the Revolution really was came to surface. Many people scoffed at this saying that ample time wasn’t used with the actual hardware and that the games were being demoed off of a modified GameCube. Although this is true that a lot of tech demos were in fact being streamed off of boosted GameCubes, many refused to believe that the Revolution was going to be slaughtered by the competition; especially with how many times Nintendo has downplayed their own graphics. It wasn’t until a year after the Revolution was announced when many things were finally laid to rest.

It first started when Nintendo announced the name “Wii” would be the name for the console and not the name “Revolution” that so many have come to adore. This name was completely met with backlash, and to this day is still hated. Then come some screenshots. People refused these were actually games on the Wii. Sadly these were confirmed and many shrugged it off. Then, Nintendo finally got a break with E3 2006.

This is where Nintendo had the support of nearly everyone in the gaming industry because everyone had a chance to get hands on experience with what they called the “gaming revolution.” Astoundingly it was met with success throughout all three days of the conference. From opening day at 9 A.M. people ran to Nintendo’s booth in order to get their hands on the Wii-mote. Games like Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Legend of Zelda, and a plethora of others kept gamers at bay while other booths were almost completely empty due to Nintendo’s huge showing. Even though it might have seen like a victory in Nintendo’s eyes, especially with both Sony and Microsoft confessing that Nintendo’s Wii would be the ultimate second console (after you picked up theirs of course) for the average consumer, Nintendo still got criticized.

PS3 Portal published a news article chastising Nintendo for fabricating the lines, that usually became six hours long within minutes of the E3 doors opening, and having poor booth management. Although many people there will cite that Nintendo’s booth was nothing other than spectacular, some people say that these lines were just poor booth design and management on top of pre placed Nintendo associates to make the line seem bigger. Could this just be Sony’s way of trying to downplay Nintendo’s booth since they had a somewhat lackluster booth in comparison? More than likely; yes.

While Nintendo has been getting reamed over and over since the Wii’s official announcement, it has also been revered as something that will take gamers to the next level. Being one to actually have been able to try out the Nintendo Wii, I will be more than thrilled to be able to get my hands on one of these puppies. Whether or not the Wii seems the same success as the Nintendo DS is up for grabs, but from my opinion, the Wii pounds the DS six feet under ground. Congratulations Nintendo, you have sold me for another generation.

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