Well we all know the Wii is very popular, here are the numbers for January:

January 2007 console sales (North America)

Wii: 436,000
Xbox360: 294,000
PS3: 244,000

source: Bloomberg.com

Too bad about Sonic. I had mild interest and it still sounds like a decent cheap title in the future. I'll be waiting for some of the other big titles. I still have other stuff to buy with very little money anyway, so I can wait.

Personally, I'm still very excited for Sonic.

From what I've read about Sonic I am still excited about it.

I think that one thing that hurts wii reviews is that even the video game media isn't used to the controls, so they always seem to get bashed. I'm more of a find out on my own type of gamer.

I'm still getting it. From the Wiik in Review Podcast it sounded like they really liked it despite some of the flaws. The 6.9 doesn't really correlate to what they were saying.

At any rate, I have pretty much given up on IGN's reviews(on the Wii side) after their 8.5 glowing review of that turd of a game Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. I'll read it, but I'll place my money on other sites reviews instead.

Gamerankings is currently showing a 76% average, with IGN and Yahoo Games!(they do reviews?) bringing down what would be almost an 80%. Which is pretty good. (I discount IGN and know nothing about the reviews at Yahoo)

At any rate, with gift cards and coupons, it will only run me $20, so I'm in for that price.

I was mildly excited about Sonic, but won't be getting it any time soon. Too many other games to play.

Yeah, I'd say it's worth it for people that like Sonic and/or like that kind of Excitetruck control scheme.

I'm beginning to question whether the Wii is going to be for me in the long run though, most of the motion control schemes so far just seem lame to me. Stuff like this just seems useless and tacked on, as I said before I'd rather just play the game with traditional controls.

It works in something like zelda where its a mix of traditional controls and motion controls, but I'm not a fan of stuff like this where it just seems like a platformer has been simplified into some kind of racing game hybrid to tack on gimmicky tilt and thrust controls.

Reminds me of early DS games that did little other than needlessly overuse the touch screen. Hopefully we'll see a shift away from this to more subtle use of the motion control in a year or two as we have seen with the DS. Most of my favorite DS games make little or no use of the touch screen (NSMB, Princess Peach, Castlevanias, Mario Kart etc.).

We are still in the launch window. I think you are giving up too early. I'm betting all those still on the fence with the controls will be set straight with Mario Galaxy. And that is obviously a completely unfounded hunch.

Yeah, like I said hopefully it will be like the DS and all the games that are just basically built around the gimmick of the control scheme well be washed away by games that either use it will or don't use it much at all rather than forcing it in to games.

I think it will follow the same pattern. Fire Emblem is the first major release not built around the Wii control and I think there will be others made more traditionally with a bit of Wii control tossed in. Actually, Sonic seems like a decent game and I think many will enjoy it. It just isn't a $50 title to me.

The big problem is all these PS2 and PSP ports. They are basically taking existing games built for standard control schemes and tacking on Wii control. These are the games that have me worried as they could end up turning off people to the Wii.

Yeah. I just picked up Excite Truck and the controls aren't interesting enough to make me forget that it is a very dull game. Of course, driving with both wiimote and nunchuck on Call of Duty isn't any better.

Totally.

I'm also just not a fan of taking an existing franchise like Sonic and taking on full motion controls. That's nearly as bad IMO. I want to control sonic freely in the past, and maybe use the Wiimote for attacks or something. Not have it be some kind of racing hybrid where all I do is tilt to steer and thrust to attack.

I just borrowed ET from a friend and I played for about 2 hours last night and I disagree. I find it to be a blast, of course it isn't very difficult. I got S rankings in all the races in the first 3 cups so far with only having to do a handful over again. I imagine it will get more difficult, but so far it is very easy and responsive.

Like in Zelda when I'd still hit A to swing, I found myself trying to drive with the control pad and ultimately boosting and overheating far more than I wanted all while not actually turning

But, I'm enjoying it and I bet it would be great with a few other people.

I guess I'll rent Sonic and see how I like it, I'm hoping the mini-games are fun at least. I was disappointed in the presentation of the minigames in Super Monkey Ball. I think what they should have done is make the mini-games a separate game in itself, similar to Mario Party.

That is one part that I missed in the transition of Pokemon Stadium (1 & 2) to the Pokemon Coliseum game is the elimination of the multi-player mini-game competition. I haven't heard anything about Pokemon Battle Revolution readding the minigame competition, which seems like an obvious thing to do with the new control scheme.

Whoa, a Sonic game that didn't get horrible ratings? That's impressive.

Wow. I guess that solves the mystery of why PS3's a sitting on the shelf and why Wiis are not. It seems they are producing more but people are just buying more as well.

This is interesting.

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-1.htm



"So now you know approximately how much power the 3 new consoles consume. Some of the more interesting notes to me were:

In video games, both the PS3 and XBOX 360 were relatively low compared to a mid-to-high range PC.
The Wii is amazingly efficient, using no more than 18 Watts in any of our tests (although it really shows in visual quality in games)
Both consoles are power hogs when it comes to playing movies.
XBOX 360's Dashboard console is power-hungry (and slow). PS3's is slick and uses a lot of power, but no more than playing a DVD.
Neither the XBOX 360 nor PS3 really came out as a winner or loser when it comes to power consumption levels. The PS3 requires a bit more all around, but not much to write home about for now. Things may certainly change with future firmware updates (especially if either console adds DVD upsampling to the mix).

If you are really interested in saving the earth while getting your game on, get a Wii (just be sure to disable Connect24) "

Is there a way to remove this channel once I've downloaded it? I also found it pretty worthless.

Honestly, I think the best racing experience so far on the Wii was a mingame on Warioware, which felt natural and responsive. I think the biggest issue is th at there isn't a button that would be ideal for acceleration. I think maybe more rumble feedback would help create some illusion of steering.

Go to the Wii System Menu (bottom left of the main page). Data Management->Wii->Channels. There you should be able to delete it. There may be some Save Data as well. Just hunt around, you'll find it.

Cool...thanks. I did hunt around, just didn't look there.

Wow. Really? It's also slow and there is nothing going on on the track. Very boring.

i think he's talking purely on realistic feel

I guess I'm on the other side of the fence when it comes to Wii controls. I, so far, have loved the wii-motion controls. Sure, I enjoy some more traditional gameplay, but I got the Wii specifically for the new way to play games. While I don't want the controls to feel too gimicky, I'm interested in playing Sonic with motion control instead of just button-pushing.

I do like the subtle use as well, ala Zelda. Actually I love the Zelda controls.

I heard a podcast where the guy speculated on how the wii-mote could be used for Guitar Hero, and I thought it was kinda genius. It'd be neat if they actually do it:

Sell the game with a guitar that plugs into the wii-mote and have the wii-mote tucked in a compartment in the guitar. This way, the game can register both note-playing on the guitar buttons and motion from the wii-mote, so you perform tricks in the game for bonuses -- spinning the guitar, whatever.

Anyway.. thought that sounded kinda neat.

I was listening to that today. I think they basically said it's the best 3d sonic game, which isn't saying much; and there are some really great/fun parts to it, but also some very frustrating parts. So it seems to be a high/low experience.

I like the driving in ET. Pretty intuitive, and I usually find myself using 'body english' on racing games, now it actually helps the game.

I was at the game stores today looking thru the used GC games, since I didnt' have one, and saw there's a Mario Party 8 coming out in March I think, so I guess I'll wait on getting one of the 4-7 EB had.

Anyone else slightly concerned about the economy of the VC? For one thing, I think the games are priced a little high; for another, I usually like to have tangible games--if nothing else, the thought of resale or retrade helps make a purchase of a 30-50 buck game go down a little easier. Obviously you can't do that on the VC, and I wonder if some developers will use that as a prod to push full priced download-only games (though of course with the 512 MB memory, it will be hard to do.)

So far, for the most part, the wii controls have been different/novel, but not too 'gimmicky'. After playing each game for a few minutes, they feel natural, with the exception of Zelda, and that's probably just because there are more of them and I haven't played much yet.

Lighter note: Typing is one thing, but when speaking aloud, I just can't bring myself to say "wiimote". I say 'remote' or 'controller'. Anyone else?

Also, TRU had about 10 remotes and 8 or so wii points cards, so they're out there, they just have to be found. EB had none of either.