TechLounge

Nintendo’s next generation console which was known as the Revolution has now officially been re-named the Nintendo Wii. This would appear to be a totally bizarre name, but Nintendo insists that the reasoning behind the name is that “Wii sounds like “we,” which is simple really. Nintendo says the name needs no abbreviation because people everywhere will have no problem saying that it is the Wii. It would also appear that there is very much a family orientated philosophy to the console and that nintendo have targeted people looking for a family based gaming experience.

The design of the console itself is cool. It’s colour is a clean cut white and is going to be roughly the size of three stacked DVD cases meaning it is going to be quite compact and easy to find a place for if you are cramped for space (although we’re concerned as to what sort of size the power lead will be). The neon blue stripe down the front gives a real funky look to the Wii, and the Wii controller is different from any other game controller out there.

The Wii also has a variety of other useful features. Such as wireless connectivity using iEEE 802.11 b/g, or with a USB 2.0 LAN adaptor. It will also be able to wirelessly communicate with the Nintendo DS. The Wii will be compatable with GameCube games and will also have access to the many years of previous games from the N64, SNES and NES systems. The Wii will have 512mb
of internal flash memory, two USB slots and the ability to expand flash memory with an SD card slot. The Wii will also feature 4 slots for GameCube controllers and 2 slots for GameCube memory cards. However the 2 real disappointments of the Wii are that, there is no DVD compatability (although you will be able purchase a seperate unit for playing DVD’s on the Wii), and the Wii is not a high defenition console which is not good, as high definition is most defnitely the future for gaming.

The Wii looks and sounds like it has the potential to rattle the cages of the PS3 and Xbox 360, but without high definition capabilities can it really
compete? Nintendo will have to be better at getting top notch games signed up for the Wii than they did for the GameCube if they really want to make it a real competitor amongst the next gen consoles.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Gaming, Home Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.