I love this article - for me the Wii was definitely a revolution.

Before the Wii I was just a former gamer, my last console was a SNES. This is why the Wii is so important to me and it's also why all those rumors about Project Cafe are making me sad. I mean, I don't want a new console with a dual analog controller and line-up filled with PS360 ports. What I want are more 2D Mario, more skyward sword/red steel 2 games and even more Wii Sports games.

I like this article, the only thing i dont agree with is the split controller, IMO its not ideal for fighters, where you have to do a lot of movement, so I think the regular controller will always trump the split one in that regard. 

@the won  you lost a bit of credibility when you said that the online last gen was on DC, you ever heard of Xbox, the actual console that put online gaming in the home consoles. some would argue even the original live was better than WiiWare now. As for VC IMHO its overhyped, it was great at first then the titles started getting less frequent, then they stopped coming and are back a bit.but lets get real here there are about 7 platforms for it there is no reason at all we should have ever had a week of where there was no VC games. NES alone has about 500 titles. And those games you mentioned, exercise, dance and 2d? They are on the HDs maybe not as much but they are there

 I agree with the article, for me the wii is brilliant due to the controllers, the wiimote Nunchuck combination is really amazing... I hope they dont forget them with Café.

felt the same but that game was screaming to use the classic controller though, The split control option isn't perfect but than again no controller is

^^ Actually, the problem with DKCR was that it was a game that needed exact timing precision yet relied on motions for some of its controls

If the game utilized some of the unused buttons instead, we wouldn't have had this problem. Nothing to do with the fact that the controller is split

For an article that has as goal to point out the great stuff the Wii had I find it quite underwhelming..

Sure stuff as BC is a nice thing but after the first months of a new console I don't really need it anymore.

Their was only one game I couldn't play on my X360 and that was Psychonauts and then I found out their was a petition were gamers asked for an emulator on X360 that could play Psychonauts. The petition had less than 5.000 votes but MS listened and even put the game later as an downloadable title on marketplace. If gamers wanted bc for an game it was possible so long their is demand....Sucks thought if you are a fan of Fifa 2001 and you really want to play the xbox game on X360 W_W...

I could go on but I guess I would be to negative about this article.

Yes, the Wii needs a little more love, especially considering I am buying one in a few months.

The Wii was a breath of fresh air for the industry. That is the best way to describe it. It was the only console for people who didn't like 90% violent games/FPS/Epic RPGs with complex control schemes. Games essentially geared towards 14-35 year old males.

But for as successful as this console was, there is a certain tragedy within that success in that its potential was never fully realized. This was the fault of Nintendo, as well as third parties. They didn't really follow through on the type of games the console was designed for, and what the Wii consumer expected. The types of games being, back to basics, simple to pick up games with pure, rich gameplay, and often emphasis on multiplayer. Basically the types of games you see at arcades. Nintendo forgot what their console was all about, and third parties were never really on board to begin with. So this limited the sales somewhat

For what it's worth though, Wii is still a great console with some solid games for almost anyone, and it can't be denied that it made quite an impact.

Eurogamer also did a piece on Wii today. While the article itself seems a bit overly pessimistic, it comes with some pretty interesting data courtesy of NPD:

Regarding the declining sales of the platform:

"The immediate response from Nintendo is a global price cut for the Wii, and a line of budget software – in the UK it's now £129 for the console with a choice of game, while in the US it's $149. Reggie Fils-Aime reckons this puts the console at a crucial level of affordability, citing the PS2's ongoing indian summer as Nintendo's target. "For us this is a very important move," he says. "And in the last home console cycle, the leading system at the time sold almost 50 per cent of its volume at a price point of $149 or below." "

The article even goes on to quote Pachter saying he believes Wii will keep selling, similarly to the PS2 (but hey, it's Pachter, so do with that information whatever you wish . I was just happy to see him not hating on the console for once )

"It's that PS2 comparison that's interesting, though. "The Wii should enjoy the same success that the PS2 enjoyed from 2004 – 2009," says Pachter, "fairly robust sales and decent software sales, but declining each year." "

"Sony announced on January 31 2011 that long into its tenth year the PS2 has sold over 150 million hardware units on January 31 2011, and a mind-boggling 1.52 billion games. That works out at an average of just over ten titles sold per hardware unit. The Wii's sales stand at 86 million for hardware and 695 million for software.
That's an attach rate of 8.2 per Wii console."

The last graph below is admittedly the closest to the typical stereotype when it comes to software sales on Wii, as you'd expect it to have significantly more sales than the 360 does based on Install base alone. I for one am actually pleasantly surprised by this number, as we all know what terrible support Wii got from third parties, when it came to quality of releases and marketing effort; and yet these numbers are still pretty respectable. That being the situation, isn't it reasonable to assume sales could have up to doubled if there had been a steady stream of high-quality support from the start? If anything, this graph shows what an opportunity there was for software sales, and how 3rd parties failed to realize it...

Or in the words of Eurogamer:

"Since its earliest days one observation about the Wii has been pervasive: it doesn't have the software. More specifically, it doesn't have the third party support you'd expect for the market-leading console. Nintendo answered this point last year and, being Nintendo, did so with sales statistics: Fig 2 show an undeniably impressive 8.2 games sold per console and total software sales of 695 million units.

There's a caveat, of course. Nintendo released at the same time a list of the Wii's biggest sellers: remove the Nintendo-published and developed games from that list, and 695 million becomes 398.5 million – or an attach rate of 4.7 games per system. So far in 2011, 12 of the top 20 selling Wii games are first party."

All this is to say that in addition to acknowledging the things Wii did right, one shouldn't be so quick to condemn it for the things it (supposedly) didn't.

Also, one more thing I'd like to add after reading some of the comments this article got on Eurogamer. I'll admit there are many examples from this gen where Sony and MS have been much kinder to gamers and more supporting, but in the end of the day there really is no contest in this regard. I mean you'd have to be an idiot not to adore a company who is willing to lose billions of dollars in order to keep you and (a few) others like you happy with the kinds of experiences you demand . Seriously, it's like being payed money to play the games you want!

I'll be the first to admit that Nintendo is definitely lacking in that kind of dedication