Wii are thinking about getting a Wii. Wii don't have a console gaming system at all (I'm the gamer, and that's on an old PC).

Wii are thinking it will be a cheaper entry into the console gaming realm.

Opinions please.

If you like Nintendo-made games a lot, then it's fine. Otherwise, you could get the cheap model 360 for the same price.

I got a Wii and an Xbox around the same time a couple of years ago,

The Wii I have since given to my brother for his kids as unless you have friends round the thing was sitting there idle doing nothing. I just never found any single player games that I would want to sit down in the evening and play by myself. Mulitplayer wise with friends round it's a good laugh mind.

Now as for the 360, that's been used by myself a fair bit for single player and the multiplayer side of things as you would expect from a console. I've also had a go on someones 360 who has Kinect and it basically does all the Wii can do and some more. Another thing I like about the xbox is the online rental of movies which I started using a few months ago, the selection isn't amazing but for £2-3 quid saves me the guilt of having downloaded the movie.

I'd suggest to anyone now to get the 360+Kinect over the Wii as the 360+Kinect does everything the Wii can do but also a heck of a lot more. It's also by far and away a much better gaming console.

We have a wii, an xbox 360, and a ps3. We never use the wii, it's been collecting dust for over a year now. That's not entirely true, we played super mario wii which ruled. There are some games on it I like, but we don't play it often at all.

I also own a Wii, an Xbox 360 and a PS3. Our Wii has also been collecting dust for over a year now (Prime trilogy came out last September.)

The PS3 gets used the most... as a media player.

I use the Wii for party gaming with people who don't game a lot. So...not that frequently.

I'd recommend getting an X-Box 360 (Kinect or otherwise, depends on whether or not you want mat-less DDR) for gaming, though the PS3 is quite the dandy media player and, if you're coming from a strong PS1 / PS2 background, the PSN Store has quite the dosage for your nostalgic needs.

I started thinking about what the Wii has going for it over other consoles these days.

It's no longer cheaper, and motion controls are on other consoles now. If you've got family, both the Xbox and PS3 have a decent selection of games suitable for children.

I can think of too many cons: lower performance (I'm actually reluctant to play any console games that aren't in high def these days), much fewer non-party games, poor media capabilities ("lol it's meant for playing games" WELL CELL PHONES ARE MEANT FOR CALLING PEOPLE BUT THERE'S SEVERAL FEATURES I WOULDN'T WANT TO GIVE UP just so I can have a phone I can only make calls with), worse online play...these are some pretty key aspects here.

The one and only reason to get a Wii right now would be the first-party games. This post may seem angry, but I'm very happy that Nintendo has managed to maintain such a steadily high quality in their own releases.

If you don't care about Nintendo games, spend the money on a different system. It's that simple.

My family got a Wii about two years ago. We had some really fun family nights on Wii Sports, but over a while the appeal got less and less. After all, there are only so many times you can play the same games and still really enjoy them. My dad, however, absolutely loved the golf game. Whenever I was back from Uni we used to go a few rounds in friendly competition, but I always got the impression (because he's home alone most days and always used it to pass an hour or so) that he was getting bored of it. So since I started a new job about a month ago I got Wii Sports Resort as a present to the family (but mostly for my dad), and with playing the new games with my them I've really had it driven home that the Wii is great fun for a bunch of people to have a laugh with. I just don't see myself ever enjoying it as a tool to unwind with the same way I do with my 360. I guess part of that is due to how I want to just sit down and enjoy the game I'm playing, but another part is due to the fact that there's a great deal of enjoyment to be had (for me and my family) in watching everyone else look like a complete arse (Wii Sports Basketball 3-point challenge springs immediately to mind).

That said, I don't have the most extensive experience with Wii gaming. Between Wii Sports and Resort, the only other game I ever played on one was Twilight Princess, and I thought that was fantastic.

Yeah those experiences can be had on the other consoles now...only improved. :/

As has been the case mostly since the N64, you buy a Nintendo system (including the Wii) for their first-party games and the multiplayer games. However, here are a couple of the exceptions (singleplayer third party) for the Wii in my opinion (I don't hunt for singleplayer much these days) :

Epic Mickey: Yeah, the camera can be pretty bad at times, but I found it to be a pretty solid platformer-type game, and if you like old-school Disney, I think you'll enjoy this.

MadWorld: Not the best controls, but I enjoyed the general gameplay premise a lot.

There's also WiiWare to consider (such as Lost Winds), Virtual Console (if you don't some of the older consoles from Nintendo and others pre-Gamecube era) and Gamecube games (if you don't own that).

3 reasons to get a Wii.

Buy it. Play it. 0 regrets.

Too bad Nintendo stopped printing it, so unless you get lucky, it's gonna cost you way more than it's worth...

Prime Trilogy was okay. My only gripe with it is that they significantly reduced the graphics quality of Prime 1 and Prime 2.

I got mine used for like $40... The store I got it from had quite a few copies, it can't be that hard to come by =/

Reduced? Only thing missing from Prime 1 was were some the beam effects.

I was thinking of picking up Prime Trilogy back in the day, but didn't since I had the third and heard it didn't support the Wii Zapper. Honestly, out of all the games out there to support it, this should have been on the top.

How can something not support the Wii Zapper? It's a gun stock.

Usually, if the game doesn't allow full customization, they have a control scheme with the Zapper in mind. As it is, you can't really play the game with a zapper because either the fire button or the jump button is mapped to the A button, which is a pain to use.

All effects textures have lower resolutions, weapons models are missing animations, most framebuffer effects are gone, water animations are gone, a lot of particle effects are missing or scaled down, and I don't remember for sure - it's been a year - but I'm pretty sure in Phendrana Drifts, Ridley's shadow and the cubemap reflections were lower resolution, too.

They added bloom. Between that and the motion controls, the Wii probably just doesn't have enough power left over to handle the original graphics.

Ah, I see... or I didn't when I played anyway lol.

In any case though, I still think it's a great buy for the Wii (if you're still reading Chewie).

I thought it was a shame nothing that made the Prime games great translated to that new Metroid game, Other M.

Other M was just ... what the ****

I guess that they just didn't want any Western garbage in the holy Japanese final product.

I am, and so has my wife. Sorry for the lack of a response - it's the end of the semester and my workload triples or so right before the end.

Anyway, the comments here are about the opposite of the comments I got when I posted on Facebook. But I told my wife that was to be expected, you guys are mostly gamers, most of my FB friends are not. The Wii sounds like something that would be great for playing with the wife and kids (4 and 8 yrs old), but also sounds like something they/we will outgrow. Not to mention the weaker graphics. The PS3 has the bonus of the blueray player, which I liked a lot, and then there's the Xbox Kinect, which is really out of our price range right now.

For now, we are languishing in indecision between the Wii and a PS3. So it's very likely, that we won't do either, and just use the cash to pay off a medical bill or something. :/

So for the record we have ps3 and we only use it for blu-ray, never for games. My 4 year old has recently (like within the last week) discovered the wii and he loves wii sports and wii play. He also likes mario games but he can't get past the 2nd level yet.

The 360 has the advantage of being cheap and full of good games even on XBLA. And the Kinect is seriously not necessary nor even recommended.

Hey, that's a sound decision as well.

I spoke too soon. The wife is back pitching the Wii again. Which is fine, I guess. I'm the only hardcore gamer in our house, and I prefer to play SP games on the PC. I'd still need a bundle of cash to upgrade the PC to stay current.

I have the PS3, XBOX 360 and Wii (actually two Wiis). I use our PS3 as a BluRay Player (I own 3 or 4 games for it, that's it). I'm not a huge fan of the Dualshock controller. Don't get me wrong, i don't hate it, but i like the XBOX Controller better.

I use the Wii for fun, light-hearted, and very enjoyable gaming. I LOVE the mario, zelda and DK series, but the Wii also has the new Goldeneye, Epic Mickey, tons of other First Party games that are a blast to play, especially with my wife who doesn't generally game much (she enjoys Epic Mickey, Kingdom Hearts, DK and the mario games, but that's about it discounting any 'party' games. I find the Wii to just be a ton of fun, and while I still manage to get sucked into the games, i don't get as frustrated with them as i do with games on the other systems.

I know the xbox hasn't come up as seriously in the topic, but to be complete: I use my XBOX for more 'serious' gaming (CoD, Fall Out, Halo reach, etc...) but also some of the more 'fun' games that are available thanks to Kinect. I vastly prefer XBOX Live over PSN, personally. I vastly prefer the interface of the XBOX Live marketplace (and the dashboard as a whole, versus the XMB) and the achievements work better than the trophies (come on, syncing the trophies?) Plus I just have more friends on XBL than PSN.

If I didn't own any of the consoles, but my Wife and I were looking, I'd probably wind up buying a Wii thanks to the gaming library. My wife and I grew up with NES/SNES games, so that's a pretty huge factor (because I grew up playing and loving the classic nintendo series' and thus have a bias) but also because my wife isn't a huge gamer, and many of the games are a bit more approachable for her to play on her own and for us to play together. Online gaming isn't terribly important to me, I still like the idea of playing together in the same room, so that's also a factor worth considering. Of course, the Wii's graphics are FAR from the best, but is something worth considering. For me the graphics aren't something that's ever been much of a factore since I find that it's far more important to have fun playing.

I won't be disappointed if there's a Wii under the TRii. Ha.