Wii Play is set to become one of the best selling games in video game history, it sold about 27m copies to date (which actually already makes it one of the best selling video games of all time). Wii Play has a Metascore of 58, so how could this happen?

“It’s a crappy $10 game that comes with a Wii Remote. People buy it for the controller, that’s all there is to it.”

I think this answer is to simple. Wii Remotes are also sold as stand-alone, so if the game is as bad as it is said to be, why don’t people choose the cheaper option? Additionally, three years after release Wii Play is still in demand. This suggests that Wii Play is perhaps a good game, so I should try to find a way to prove it. But since that is an easy undertaking for a critical thinker like me, I up the challenge.

I will show you how and why Wii Play offers more value than Super Mario Galaxy, Halo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 combined.

“Wii Play is sooo primitive, how is this better than Super Mario Galaxy?”

What you see here is Laser Hockey, one of the nine minigames in Wii Play. Does it remind you of another game? Yes, Pong. That simple game was so popular in the 1970s that there were dozens of different machines build for use at people’s homes and all those systems ever did was playing variations of Pong.

“You know, Halo 3 has vehicles as well. Much better ones at that too.”

The Tanks minigame in Wii Play kinda resembles Atari’s title Combat which came as a pack-in with each Atari 2600. That console sold about 30m units, so there are plenty of people who came in contact with Combat.

“Wow, amazing graphics. This puts Metal Gear Solid 4 to shame. /sarcasm”

Wii Play’s shooting range should remind any veteran gamer of Duck Hunt, a title that came bundled with quite a lot of Nintendo Entertainment Systems.

“What’s the point of this history lesson?”

It’s supposed to help people understand why Wii Play is so popular. Look, it contains games that tenths of millions of people used to love long before video games went 3D. Even if the other six minigames in Wii Play were bad, these three shown in the screenshots above could easily offset that. What’s more important is that pretty much everyone used to play games like Pong, Combat or Duck Hunt when those games were new.

“But how does this make Wii Play having better value than Super Mario Galaxy, Halo 3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 combined?”

People love video games and there are many gamers who would like to share their love for games with their family. The problem is that nowadays most games are hard to get into, especially if you happen to be a newcomer. They quickly put the controller down, because the games aren’t fun to them. Wii Play is a fantastic entry point to the world of video games, because the games found in Wii Play worked in the past and they still do today. Some gameplay ideas prove to be immortal, Tetris would be another good example.

Pretty much every hardcore gamer started with simple games, probably even you, dear reader. From your own experience you should know that most people don’t stop at one game once they’ve realized how much fun video games can be. Wii Play does a good job at this and at the very least it lets people enjoy what they love with people that they love.

(Yes, I know that Wii Play is only a two player game, but it’s hard to find a good picture of just two people playing because the Wii simply is so damn awesome.)

Wii: $199. Wii Play: $49. Playing with people that you love: Priceless.