Wii — Nintendo’s Most Sold Console

It’s no secret that the Wii is one of the best-selling consoles in general and of the seventh generation in particular. However, many gamers believe that the games are too simple and are rather for kids while the graphics can be compared to one of PS2.

At the same time, its popularity speaks for itself. And numerous games made for Wii became legendary. Among them is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Super Mario Galaxy, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Resident Evil 4, and so on. You can download numerous nes roms and remember what’s so great about those games.

History of Creation

As you know, Nintendo begins to develop consoles immediately after the release of the previous one. And the Wii is no exception. Development started in 2001. Game designer Shigeru Miyamoto said in an interview that the concept of the new console meant a new way of interacting with the player and that the power for the new console was not the main thing.

In 2004, at E3, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed the “Revolution.” The Nintendo Wii was known under this name until 2006. Before getting the familiar name, such options as the GameCube Next, as well as the N5, were considered. However, the choice was settled on the Wii. On the one hand, the name is consonant with “we”, and on the other hand, the two “i” are like two people. Thus, Nintendo focused on the interaction of players.

The history of the creation of the Wiimote controller is also interesting. In 2001, at the very beginning of the development phase, Nintendo acquired the rights to patents from Gyration Inc., a company specializing in the development of computer mice. It’s funny that initially the concept of motion control was proposed by both Sony and Microsoft, but both giants were rejected. Nintendo asked the company to design a new controller for their then-Gamecube console. The prototype was ready, but later this controller was used for the new Wii system.

Nintendo Wii in Person

The console itself is surprisingly small in size: length – 215 mm, width – 44 mm, height – 157 mm. It is slightly larger than a DVD box in dimensions.

Specifications are as follows:

  • Central processing unit: 729 MHz IBM PowerPC (codenamed “Broadway”);
  • GPU: 243 MHz ATI (codenamed “Hollywood”);
  • RAM: 88 MB;
  • Internal memory: 512 MB;
  • Optical drive with DVD and GameCube support.
  • Wi-FI and Bluetooth modules.

On the front side is the disc tray, power button, console reset, disc eject. Under the cover, there is a slot for an SD card, as well as a controller’s synchronization button.

Unfortunately, there are not so many colors and limited editions – only four of them: white – standard, black, replacing the white version – these ones were both the first and second versions. The blue version of the console was only in revision 2. And finally, the red one, released for the 25th anniversary of Mario, this console was only in the first revision.

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