Accessibility. The price point. The controller. The game selection.

This system appeals to families rather than gamers.
And there are more of the former than the latter.

Mike from Morgantown

it's for casual gamers, a lot of people buy the wii just for party/family games.

The Wii Remote, duh.

I stopped reading when you called Metroid a casual/family friendly game. You obviously haven't played Metroid Prime. Those things are freakin scary.

Go back and read i was just tring to say that the GC and N64 had most of the games the Wii does why weren't they selling as good as the Wii

I like WiiStation360 and Gamerace's reasons so far never relised that but it's true it takes me about a day to figure out some games bottun layout  i don't think it's so much the SW like others have posted

It has been said to death but:

1. The GC and N64 games weren't so accessible as the Wii ones, even when they are the same, the next gen controls breaks the controller barrier.

2. Of course people don't buy a console to play DVD. Perhaps that was the case when it was a fad, but now, you can buy a DVD player for far less than a Wii. Besides, if they included a DVD player, the very same whiners would come back saying it is useless because it doesn't upscale to HD resolutions.

3. People don't buy because of price, but because they see a good price/value ratio. Value is very important here, price doesn't mean anything without value. That's why people don't buy anything that is at low price. That's why the cheaper XB360 still sells far less than the Wii.

4. XBox sold roughly like GC, and hardcore SW has no meaning at all, so it's just that your bases are flawed, so of course you can't understand anything.

5. Not everyone had every games from the NES, SNES era. Same for Neo Geo, ... Pretty easy to understand.

6. Focusing on names seems to be a typically north american thing. It's plain silly in most parts of the world.

The Wii is playable by a majority of the population. Only a fraction of the population is capable of playing most PS360 games, and most people not in that fraction are unwilling to spend the time to learn even if they are mildly interested in vdieo games. Nintendo is luring these non-gaming people into gaming with the Wii because the Wii is easy to play.

Because the N64 and GC didn't have any reason to buy unless you like the games.

1. PS1 had great games like Final Fantasy 7, Gran Turismo, and Metal Gear Solid and it was a cool new CD format instead of cartridge (don't know if that helped or not)

2. PS2 had DVD playback, as well as Grand Theft Auto III

And now the Wii is the thing to have with motion controls. Plus all the media attention its getting. Hell it was on an episode of Ellen Degeneris and every audience member got a wii.

Other reason its successful - PS3 is so damn expensive that people don't want it so they either have to choose between an unreliable 360 or a kid friendly awesome super mega motion control wii.

The wii has a higher learening curve then either the PS3 or 360.   People would just rather flail their arms like some retarded drunk then sit with a controller and enjoy a much better game.

I bought Wii because I don't understand deep, complex, intelligent games like "Halo"