I doubted Nintendo and I should be hanged. I would say that the one who had more faith in Big N was FishyJoe. He bough some stock when "analysts" said Nintendo would come as a distant third into this generation. Just look at Nintendo stock right now. I do not think that someone would make such a move based only on wishful thinking.

Thanks ItsaMii. It took me a few weeks to realize the potential of the Wii, I didn't start buying Nintendo stock until June 2006. At first, my reaction to the Wii was less than enthusiastic. To be honest, at the time I thought the name was dumb and I didn't really understand what it was about.

But the more I read about the Wii, the more I realized what a breakthrough it was. Only after a lot of research, did I throw money down on Nintendo. My only regret is that I didn't commit more initially!

Every year, me and a friend of mine have tried to guess what the "hot toy" of the year would be.  We've been doing this since the Furby was hot.  When I saw the E3 stampede, imagined what the controller would be like I sent this message to my friend:

E3 is underway.

I think this year's toy will be the Nintendo Wii (they are saying "we", I am thinking "Wheeeee" and PS-3 Fans are thinking "wee-wee").

It has been thought that this is Nintendo's last chance to make it or break it.  So Nintendo is doing things differently this time.

The Wii is going to take the gaming world by storm.  The Wii controller -- it's going to be awesome.  [snip...discussed the remote specs here]   This whole box is loaded with possibilities, and the expected price is still only $199 (speculation).  That's a bargain, and you can bet people will be going for it.  Presales, to be released in 4th quarter 2006.  PS3 is supposed to come out too in the same timeframe, but after looking at the two boxes, I'm definitely going for the Wii.  PS3 has too many problems.  It'll be overpriced (will be over $500), has already missed its first release date, and Sony is investing too much into the idea that people will pay extra to play blue-ray DVDs.  It won't happen, they're dead this time.  The kids will whine for a new console, and the parents will look at the PS3 and think "no way, too expensive" and buy the Wii.  

The way the "wii-mote" is shaped (like a rod) and senses 3-d leads to sword-swinging, gun aiming, get-your-whole-body-into-it game playing.  Sony tried to add some of the functionality into their PS3 remote.  They only added the tilt feature.  You can't spin around, hold the PS3 controller like a sword, or move around the room and have it detect where you are like the wii-mote does.  I suspect the battery life is going to be a problem (haven't seen any indication of the expected lifetime).  Nintendo is holding an information blackout, giving only enough to get people excited.  They are going to be marketing this big time as 4th quarter approaches, creating a huge demand.  And their target market is massively expanded.  This is going to be big.

You've been told.

and in another e-mail to him the next day:

There is one potential problem.  Because the information on the Wii has come out in little bits and pieces, there has been a lot of pre-market criticism of the box.  Let me give you an example.  The specs came out, and it was about twice as good as the gamecube, which wasn't all that great. 

[snip...more examples, such as DVD & not Bluray, non-HDTV support, wireless controller, virtual console] 

See, the order of these things coming out make it seem like this box is doomed from the start.  But as soon as they added ability to detect where in the room the controller is, they suddenly changed the face of gaming.  Because now it becomes a whole body experience.  Imagine swinging the remote like a tennis racket, feeling it hit the ball.  Or casting out a fishing line.  Swinging a golf club or baseball bat, or using the remote as a sword with the nunchuck as the shield.  It's sensitive enough to be able to detect if you are trying to put a spin on the tennis ball, or going straight.  That's going to be fun.  Up to 4 players at a time.

Imagine parents playing games with their kids "Oh yeah, I used to play pac-man 3d.  Let me show you how it's done."

Ok, so there is a lot of POTENTIAL in this thing.  It is still possible for Nintendo to totally screw it all up by not doing a massive marketing effort which will be needed to counter some of the initial skepticism.  But from the posts I've been reading, people are genuinely excited about the controller now, and are starting to see the whole "playing is believing" thing.  

and then on 9/14/07:

Preorders for the PS3 might not be a bad idea at this time either.  The PS3 is going to be massively undershipped.  Sony screwed up big time and are only shipping 400,000 units to the US by christmas.

If I had thought about the stock market, I would have invested.  But instead I was thinking about stock on the shelves and trying to get me a preorder.

Found the stampede video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeR0fL9ofYY&NR=1

Once I saw what Nintendo was doing with the DS, I knew they were going to strike gold. Once I saw the Wii, I knew they were here to stay.

yeah I found that one but it's not as good as the one that was on kotaku. You could see that the crowd was ALL going to the Wii (with a few other people going elsewhere. They also showed some people in the PS3 booth watching the crowds go to the Wii. 

I will admit, I've been a Nintendo fan from the beginning. I was a fan when Nintendo was doing well and I was a fan when it was doing poorly. I knew as soon as I heard about the motion-and-accelerometer controller that the Wii was going to be huge. I just had no idea how huge. I thought "Hey, the Wii may actually be able to put up a fight this time around. But I bet the PS3 will still be on top."

I had no idea how huge the Wii would be until May 2005. I and two of my friends were able to score tickets to the Nintendo World Store's E3 party inside the store in New York City. This consisted of two events.

The first was a live feed of Nintendo's E3 conference. The air was electric. Words cannot describe what that room sounded and felt like. Hundreds of people packed into the two-floor store, cheering at the games getting announced. We saw the video for Super Mario Galaxy and the building erupted in applause. The first in-game action from Twilight Princess was met with screams. After the announcement, the building was open for playing demos of the upcoming GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Wii games. A friend of mine took third place in the Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix tournament (I was in fifth until the last person played, who took fourth and bumped me down).

Then we were asked to step outside for a few minutes, they closed the store to the public, went ticket-only, and it basically turned into a Nintendo club for the night. There was a music contest, where a deejay would play a few seconds of a song from a Nintendo game, and the first person to guess correctly won some small prizes. Some Zelda-themed quizzes were going on downstairs, the other friend that went won a TP shirt for getting an answer correct.

Upstairs at what was normally one of the registers was an station where you could bring a DS and get an official E3 2005 etching on it. I would have gotten mine etched, except I was not going to be in NYC the next day to pick it up. Both of my friends got etches. One of them wound up selling his on eBay... to the second person... who wound up selling his on eBay... to me. I've got it in bubble-wrap right now since I'm still moving things into my new apartment, but I'm the proud owner of 1 of 55 DSs with the 2005 E3 etching.

The response from fans and non-fans alike was enough for me to realize that the Wii would exceed anyone's highest expectations of the system or the company.

I almost killed my first born to appease the gaming gods to give us a better nintendo experience... then Nintendo showed the real name and controller. I still have 3 kids today thanks to Miyamoto.

Since I love Nintendo games, I actually wanted them to give up on the hardware business so they would publish games for other platforms. Good thing their hardware division didn't die. If they left it up to Sony and Microsoft, we would just be seeing controllers with more and more buttons (edit) until a vg crash.

I just love the Wii remote!

I never really thought that Nintendo was going to be forced out of the console market but I also never anticipated them becoming the dominant console ever again ...

When I heard that the XBox 360 was going to cost $400 while losing a lot of money and that the PS3 was speculated to cost as much I thought Nintendo's standard strategy could treat them very well; a $200 console vs. a $400 console in an age when most games will be multiplatform means that they could have massive gains in the market even without being more powerful than their competition.

When I heard about the Wiimote at TGS 2005 I thought "Nintendo's done it" ... Nintendo produced a product that everyone was going to want to try and if they could make it inexpensive enough it would sell at an amazing level