i agree with you on many of your points. since the day ive bought it, ive been turning it on everyday to play some sort of game, wether its a VC title or a regular game or use the internet if im bored and defenetly use the everybody votes channel. im 2.8 Meters from popular opinion. (i didnt expect a channel like that to be addidcting but i was wrong). and now my dad has started playing it as well, particularly wii sports. and recently i found myself buying games just to feel how the controller was implemented which is a bad idea. i dont know why, im just addicted now to the wii mote and can say IMHO that i will never go back to a regular controllar. I agree as well that the speaker quality and the battery life does not affect me in any way. for me it does not detract from the overall value and experience of the wii. it is nice that you can turn off the consloe from the remote and it would of been a nice add on if there was a 'reset' button across from the 'power' button but regardless i am extremely proud of the overall experience. i have by now beat most of my games except sonic. got too frustrated but intend to finish sometime. but as of now i havent bought any new games. im waiting for my next purchase to come out which is manhunt 2 but that isnt for another month i believe, but im hoping before theres a games that will look fun enough to keep me entertained for about a month. so until then ill be buying VC titles. the first six months of the wii for me has been great and i know ill be spending much more money on games this year alone that i did all of last gen and thats saying something.

I managed to get one the day after launch (yes it was a freaking miracle) for my son's birthday.  It's been used in some capacity vertually every day since he got it.  For the last two months he has been grounded off of it (until he brings up his grades) but I still use it regularly whenever I have time, generally 5 minutes here, voting, or 10 minutes there, playing Wii sports or a VC game.

I bought Tiger Woods (my first console game purchase for myself in about 25 years), but I rarely have the time it requires, so I end up playing short bursts of Wii sports instead.  I'm looking forward to Mercury Madness as my next purchase since it'll fit perfectly with my gaming requirements.

My son loves DragonBall Z(but got so dominant no one will play with him anymore, let's hope the sequel is online), Zelda, Godfather (throwing people through windows is too much fun), Sports, Red Steel (multiplayer) and Play and looking forward to Mario Party, Pokemon and Strikers (why are we the last to get online??).

While he's bored of them I'm still working my way through Ultimate Alliance and Red Steel here and there.

My daughter loves Rayman, Elebits and Cooking Mama.  Her mother - Sports and she's dying to play Manhunt 2.  That's right, she wants to rip the balls off some guy.  No wonder we're divorced. lol.

But I do have one major gripe with the Wii, everytime I have a party, half the people go play Wii.  Even when I don't want them too!  Geez, can't wait for them to all get their own.  Am I the only one with this problem?

"The Joy of Simplicity" The Wii was definitely a breath of fresh air to me. opening up the box for the first time and setting up the console felt like a completely different experience from all the other consoles i've purchased. whereas their packaging is cluttered and junky with annoying cardboard folds and foam, the Wii's packaging is simple and conveniently placed in two trays. "The Joy of Simplicity" not only manifested in the packaging itself but to the console, controller and ultimately the games. The Wii would be simple by functionality and by design. Nintendo have clearly and effectively communicated that vision for the Wii product. it's this focus that was lacking with the GameCube. :"It Ain't D-Day, It's Wii-Day" I got the Wii the day it came out. iif it wasn't for that call from EBGames they were taking Wii pre-orders...i would be stuck for months without a Wii. it's because that i preordered Zelda:TP, Wii version that i was on their call list. originally i was going to get Zelda, then wait and buy the system a month or two after launch thinking that demand wouldn't be as high as the PS3, and Nintendo originally were going to ship around 1 million units at launch and many more units after, so there would be plenty to go around. that wasn't the case. the only other system i've ever preordered was when the Nintendo 64 came out, but back then i never had to wait in line like i did for the Wii. I was 4th in line, but that grew to be 15 by the time i left the store. "An Unlikely Hit" as charming as it was to see Wii Tennis in action at E3, Wii Sports wouldn't have compelled me to buy a Wii just for that game alone but Wii Sports and Zelda on the same day was enough to convince me to get a Wii sooner rather than later. what's surprising is that i was probably expecting to get bored of Wii Sports in less than a week but i ended up playing it for about 3 weeks. i played Twilight Princess for a little bit, but i didn't really start playing it until mid-December because of Wii Sports. "six months later" i don't play my Wii as fervently as i did during the winter, but i still play it the most out of all my systems. i have about 9 games: Wii Sports, Zelda, ExciteTruck, Trauma Center, Wii Play, Wario Ware, Elebits, Sonic, and Super Paper Mario. i think the Wii is off to a great start. The games are fun and different enough from the competitors, but they aren't the greatest games i've ever played. there is more improvements that need to be made with the motion controls and hopefully the visuals will keep improving and presentation could use more interactivity. These six months have gone by pretty fast. Has the hype been worth it? You bet, the hype is well deserved. Has the Wii changed my gaming habits? not really. the number of hours i spent playing games hasn't changed. i just spend more of that time on Wii. Our lives? (for the better or worse?) definitely for the better. well you know Wii makes you more fit so that can't be a bad thing

Had my Wii since Feb 14th. I play 2-3 nights a week, usually for 2-3 hours. I have 7 games and 6 VC games. Love Wii Sports and Play with others. Not so much by my self anymore. Zelda is finished, I may play a 2nd time through or continue to get 100% of stuff at a later time. Best game out there. Love ability to play all Gamecube games, currently finalizing games I missed, like Metroid Prime 2. As for other great games out now, people, buy Godfather. It is an awesome game. I think this is highly ignored and underated by most. I use the other channels often, except photo. VC games are a blast from the past. I love going through punch out again and so many of my childhood favorites. I will definately end up buying a ton of VC titles before the end of my Wii. Question? When the inevitable happens and WiiHD comes out, how do you think Nintendo is going to handle the VC games? There better be a way to tranfer them from your Wii to WiiHD. It had better not be like it is now if your Wii breaks and you have to send it in to get transfered. I bet there wold be an upgrade option to redownload them to your new machine and unhook them from you older one. Anywho, back on topic, I can say with 100% conviction that the Wii was the best thing I have purchased this year. Things I want changed: 1. built-in, yet changeable, li-ion batteries in wiimote. 2. Screenames vs. wii/friend codes. 3. lower prices on VC content. Everything else is perfect as far as I can see.

I stand corrected -- looks like at least some of the reviews are quite positive.  My negative impressions over the past week came from a 7.5/10 in Nintendo Power and the latest IGN Wii-k in Review podcast.  What I'm hearing is that the Wii-mote implementation isn't as fun as Rayman or Wario Ware, that the 16:9 widescreen is 4:3 in a frame, and that it takes some time to get another game going after an event failure (have to go back through instructions screens, etc.) which could be frustrating for the little ones.  (Not that I have any...)

Looks like I need to reconsider on this -- I haven't played Mario Party 1-7 at all, and my wife and I enjoyed Rayman but haven't tackled any of the minigames in Sega's Wii efforts.  Perhaps "dismal" was too strong a word - I should have reserved that for "Escape from Bug Island," which is generating as much pre-release buzz as a dead bee.

Yeah, that game was DOA from the second it was announced.

I should have also mentioned Wii Monkey Ball. Never purchased it, but borrowed it from a friend for a while. So glad I didn't purchase it - thought it was terrible. It just was never fun - hated the main game, and never touched it again after 1-2hrs of gaming.

It hasn't escaped my attention that the only 2 Wii titles I have really disliked to date, BOTH come from Sega studios :P

(they won't be getting ANY more of my money anytime soon...) 

It is inevitable that at some point the Wii will be replaced with another Nintendo gem. That will probably have HD graphics as the cost for such will have been dramatically reduced and HDtv's will be mainstream.

So, back to my question, how do you all think they would handle the VC?

If they take that route, you may have to go through some form of "un-install" process. They won't give you a 2nd copy of your VC titles for free (i.e. old console & new console).

I doubt they will even do that. Not sure really - once you can start transfering VC titles, all sorts of things can happen.

Look at what the Elite does... 

Well, IGN have reviewed the game - and have blasted it...
(5.2 / 10)

http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/792/792495p1.html

"Hudson and Nintendo really need to rethink the Mario Party formula, but will they? Not as long as these games keep selling, no. Discerning players will find this latest effort still has its moments, but also that they are fewer and farther between. The game includes a robust list of minis, boards and modes and yet you'll quickly discover that little else has been changed. All of our complaints about previous games – the slow pace, the lackluster single-player affair, the loose attention to detail – all remain and with Mario Party 8 we can add another criticism: ignorance of the Wii remote. True, there are a dozen or more minis that do utilize Nintendo's new controller in a unique and enjoyable way, but there are dozens more that don't – that, in fact, were obviously born on GameCube and later ported to Wii with last-minute new motion systems added in. This lackadaisical approach to the franchise sequel bleeds over into the presentation, which doesn't impress as a GCN effort, let alone a Wii one.

In spite of our issues with the game, people who loved Mario Party 7 will probably enjoy Mario Party 8, too, but we've chosen not to reward Nintendo with an undeserved high score for a copy/paste sequel."

...

I'm actually a little suss about their review this time. The movies I saw looked great (to me), and I thought it was a huge step beyond the GC games. Also thought the presentation looked fantastic.

I'll probably get this game regardless - I simply need a Mario Party title for the Wii. The last game I got was MP4 - and its been long enough between drinks for me.

Still, the IGN review is very disappointing - I hope something changes for next years version. 

Got my Wii around 2 weeks after launch (uk) and my wife and I lost 2 weeks of my life playing Zelda - TP, this was followed by Red Steel, I also thought this was fantastic but I love most FPS.  After that it has become a retro machine with the wife still working through Mario 64 (she had a NES and SNES growing up but never a N64) and me playing Starfox. 

Even though the wii games have been a little slow (Godfather was also very enjoyable, Tony Hawks has us glued for a fortnight and Excite trucks is the only non-football game my brother has played in his life - and he completed it) the Wii has been switched on i'd say at an average of 5 days a week for one thing or another and when we moved 3 days ago, my wife sat with the fish on her knee for the journey to ensure they weren't damaged in the back and I was still more concerned about the Wii (this got taken out first and set up first).

Very looking forward to next 6 months though as this is where it will move into 2nd gear with fp games slowly trickling out, new vc announcements, demo channels etc all will be out by xmas - still getting more excited with each new annoucement.

finally bought Mario Strikers Charged on 25/5 - what a game!!! definetly worth the wait and I'd reccomend it to everyone..