My dad recently decided that he wanted to buy a Wii - more or less completely out of the blue, and when I came home from University for Easter he’d managed to buy one (after being on a waiting list for a couple of weeks). I’m surprised at how highly they’re demanded at the moment, especially when you compare it to the abundance of Playstation 3 units readily available at their launch. Wii seems to be a really resounding success.

After playing on it for half an hour, it’s clear to see why. Differentiating themselves and moving away from the standard games console market was a great decision by Nintendo, as they simply couldn’t have competed with Sony and Microsoft with a generic console. They wouldn’t have the following, game titles or economies of scale the other two can benefit from and it would have been a tale reminiscent to the Sega Dreamcast.

The Wii is refreshing, original and addictive. It’s really fast to start using it, with a well designed interface and straight forward controls - literally point and click. He bought the console with Wii Sports, Wii Play and a Sonic game. So far the Wii Sports blow the other two away, with the perfect combination of pick-up-and-playability, with some finer touches when you become more adept at a sport.

It really is a great interactive and fun console, with multiplayer also succeeding immensely because of the physical nature of control. Nintendo have done something amazing and really turned around their future with the Wii - it’s a great idea, executed in a near-perfect way. Go have a play with one and I’m sure you’ll agree!