I’ve been a gamer for a very long time. My interest in games is what launched my programming career, and as a young kid I used to spend hours trying to figure out how those games worked on my Commodore Vic 20. Peeking and Poking was as far as I got in those days, but the interest has been around since. For many years I worked hard to try and get a job in the games industry, and with the industry here in Australia being quite hard to get into I decided to head to the U.K. where there are more developers and a bit more opportunity to get the foot in the door. After contracting for a year to build up some funds (Australian dollars don’t do so well against the Pound) I ended up working for a game company in Guildford. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun at work, and just between you (the rest of the world) and me, there are quite a few things I miss about that job. I have talked in the past about finding people who are good, and one of the things I failed to mention (because my list was far from exhaustive) was passion. While there are people in any industry that lack passion for what they do, you can’t help but feel that the greatest concentration of passionate developers lies in the realms of games development.

That little blurb isn’t really necessary reading for the purpose of this article, I guess I just wanted to let you know that I have a bit of a background in playing, and building, games. I’m sure that many gamers out there will agree with me when I say that it’s getting to the point now where there are so few titles being released that really push the boundaries of gameplay. There are a s**tload of games released all the time, most of which suck (either fully or partially). To be honest, I don’t think there’s a game on the planet that doesn’t suck in some way. The thing is, in my opinion, the amount of suckiness (let’s call it suckage to keep with the gaming theme) in games is going up and up. Suckage is increasing rapidly, and I’ve been finding it hard to get excited about new gaming technology (such as the next-gen consoles) and the games that will be running on them …

… until today!

Well that’s not 100% true, I have in some ways been excited, but not to the same extent as the excitement I felt today. The reason is because of the shower of gold that is known as the Nintendo Wii. I have been keeping tabs on the situation surrounding the Wii ever since Nintendo first announced that they were going to be making a next-generation games console, which back then was codenamed the Revolution (which, in my opinion, they should have stuck with - but I’m no marketing genius :)). There’s been quite a bit of speculation about how good or bad this console is going to be, and lately it has really been under fire - not just because of it’s name.

The first thing geeks do when they hear about new hardware is look at the tech specs and compare to either what’s on the market already or what the product is going to be competing with. I’m not going to list all the specifications of the Wii (or it’s competitors) but at first glance it does look like the Wii lacks grunt compared to the consoles it’s going to be taking on. So already the naysayers are stating that the console will choke because it just “can’t keep up”. Add on to this the new controller, which is quite out of the ordinary, and you’ve got most of the gaming population pointing, laughing and saying that the console will “… suck due its lack of power, pissy name and TV-remote-style controller.”

I think they’re wrong. Very very wrong. There’s something about this console and it’s features that I find very compelling. The new remote controller initially seems wierd when you first look at it, but when you take a bit of time to think about how it might work, you come to realise that it’s actually quite natural. I think that this style of control is going to unlock an element of fun that the other consoles, with their standard games and standard controllers, will fail to unlock. Let’s face it, games aren’t about the whizzbang graphics, or about how many rocks there are flying about on screen at once - they’re about FUN! Nintendo cottoned on to this notion from the very start. Not one person who has played Nintendo games from the start can say that they’ve not had fun consistently on most (if not all) Nintendo hardware. These guys have mastered the art of producing technology which allow people to enjoy themselves.

The link that kicked this feeling to the front of my mind was one I stumbled on (and I don’t even know how) earlier today - it’s called the Nintendo Wii Preview. Nine pages of Wii goodness that really need to be checked out. If you don’t know what the Wii is, then you should read this and have a look at the official homepage. It’s going to be a blast.

In short, I think this console will win the next-generation console wars. It captures an element of fun that the other consoles can’t capture. It adds a style of gameplay that the other consoles can’t add. It’ll make old games replayable purely because of the way you interact with it. It’ll get more people involved because you don’t have to be a grandmaster with a “normal” gamepad controller any more, you just need to time you natural movements properly.

I think there are so many possibilities for this console that it’s going to last for a very long time. I think there might even be a chance for me to get Amy playing some games in front of the TV with me, which would be great fun - especially when we’re throwing ourselves around the room because of the nature of the controls.

Come on Wii! I may have laughed at you in the early days, but I’ll take your low specs and fun games over the shiny, spaceship-style Xbox360/PS3 with great looking but poor gaming titles any day.

Thank you Nintendo. You’ve given an old gamer a glimmer of hope that the next generation of console gaming has the chance of being enjoyable, and not just packed with suckage!