So, during the entire 7th gen there was a whole argument about Wii being a fad. People swore up and down it was a fad as did people saying it wasn't. Now, what I never understood was the people claiming it wasn't. They would act as if being a fad had negative connotation to it.

Now that the dust has settled what do you think? Was Wii a fad? If you think it was a fad then were you one of the people claiming it wasn't and have since changed your stance? If you still hold on to it not being a fad then what are your reasons?

I say it most definately was. Wii was a first place console and was also the console that fizzled out the fastest. Clear indication of a fad. Also, we see Nintendo pretty much moving away from what made Wii big with the Wii U.

I want to see if the views have changed since the start of last gen.

Well I'm not going to call the console a fad but the "revolution" of motion controls has mostly been abandoned other than Kinect. Even WiiU doesn't have it as a selling point. Waggle was a fad. A 100m selling console is just as much of a fad as every other successful console. They all have to go away at some point I don't think that makes it a fad.

would help, imo, to define the word fad.

shamelessly stolen from wikipedia.

A fad is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed with enthusiasm for some period, generally as a result of the behavior's being perceived as novel in some way.^[1] A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone.^[1]

The specific nature of the behavior associated with a fad can be of any type including language usage, apparel, financial investment, and even food. Apart from general novelty, fads may be driven by mass media programming, emotional excitement, peer pressure, or the desire of 'being hip'.^[2]

Though the term trend may be used interchangeably with fad, a fad is generally considered a fleeting behavior whereas a trend is considered to be a behavior that evolves into a relatively permanent change.^[3]

Maybe to casual gamers but not to Nintendo fans, a lot of games used pointless waggle and some games utilised the motion controls brilliantly, pro evolution soccer was a personal highlight of the console for me and was brilliant for fps, but overall I would say no, and I know some casuals who still use the wii for games like just dance, so wii lives on, I still need to get a new laser for mine, it currently sit downstairs as a netflix player right now, but it will play games again one day :)

Nothing for me to revisit, I've been calling the Wii a fad since August 2009.

Yes, there is no question nor argument

For Soccer Moms and Grandparents it was a fad. For gamers it was a Nintendo system with Nintendo games. I bought one for Mario, Zelda, Metroid, etc. I still don't like motion controls even though Zelda SS proved how to do it right. I still wanted to just push buttons rather than swing the WiiMote. It was and wasn't a fad.

kain and MegaDrive bring up good points.

Thank you kitler for posting that. So close to OP I don't think I need to inculde it

it sold 100 million units, number 1 selling console this gen, whether you can sleep well at night with that fact or not.

I would hardly claim it as a fad. It was just different and everyone tried to get a piece of the pie with rip offs like move and kinect. and they did well too.

The goal-post moving continues its endless dance, i see.