On the subject of Wii...and lines...

This morning I woke from another sleepless night a little after 5:00. Seeing that today was launch day for the new Nintendo console, the Wii, and lines were already forming the night before for the units, I trudged out into the cold to wait in line. I intended to hold a place in line for my friend who wanted one, but wasn't as eager to set out into the early morning cold. I ran by Target first, which already had every Wii accounted for in line, and then to Circuit City, which had a short line that still accounted for every Wii. Next was Toys R' Us, a chain which I longed believed was dead, but would probably still be receiving Wiis despite it's life-supported comatose state.

When I got to Toys R' Us I found one person outside. This person admitted to being the line for the Nintendo Wii. Technically, there were three people in line before me, but the others had agreed on their respective ordering and were sleeping in their cars and had been there since 1 A.M. Shortly after I joined the line (at around 6:00 A.M.) two women and their children joined up. They were sisters from New York, and my immediate take on them was not a very positive one. One of them started off at how ridiculous the whole situation of having to line up at 6:00 A.M. (or much earlier) to get something from a store should be, and how people should protest and boycott these products to teach the companies that make them a lesson. I noted that despite her high views on the subject, she was lining up. I thought that if a riot insued though (as it did when I lined up with my brother for the XBOX 360), she would be the one to start it. She actually turned out to be really nice in the end though.


In fact, everyone in line was very nice, calm, and fairly relaxed. Maybe this is the Nintendo croud. A lot of families were in line, not people hoping to hauk their goods on e-Bay. My friend joined me in line after a few hours, and that made the time go by faster too. 


My payoff for the event was getting to play my friend's Wii with him. Which is why this will switch from the subject of lines to Wiis. So far, I am impressed with the system. It took forever to update, but we realized that there are only about a million other people trying to update at the exact same time, so it was kind of expected. He was able to get most of the updates. We played Wii Sports, which despite some shabby graphics is a lot of fun to play. The controls take a second to get used to (I couldn't understand the concept of swinging the Wiimote like a tennis raquet at first apparently), but they become more intuitive over time. It's also kind of a workout. We also played Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which played very well with the unique control system. Graphically, the Wii doesn't seem next gen, but that wasn't the point. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess looks really cool though, but I didn't get to see much of it because I was dead tired and needed to head home. The new gaming interface is fun to play with, the games are fun, and it seems like a great system for party games and casual gamers. I'll probably pick one up when a future batch of Wiis comes out.