My thoughts? "Welp, Twilight princess was good, No More Heroes great, and I still have to finish Super Paper Mario... The controller, after all this time, still sucks though."

Well considering i still use my PS3 and 360 regularly while my Wii has sat and gathered dust since like a month after i bought it, my concluding thoughts are:
-Motion controls are stupid bullshit
-Low resolution graphics are useless with big, 1080p TVs
-Seriously, you can't even see 1/2 the shit in Zelda from the crappy textures
-Also, 50,000ft of sensor bar cable is incredibly annoying to deal with

And last but not least, there's a special place in one of the lower tiers of hell reserved for the person or people who thought the wii-mote and chuck was in any possible way a good idea.

Well I didn't own one but the things were everywhere. I only really liked 2 games on it which where No more heroes 1-2 everything else eehhh just wasn't really that fun (IMO) but I really really loved No more heroes hell I might buy a Wii just for NMH2.
I don't know I'm just not that into nintendo stuff some of the mario stuff was okay I guess and about motion controls I think they are alrght when used well and built from the ground up with them in mind however 90% they are just cheap shovelware and no they aren't the future of gaming like microsoft keeps saying.

I see it like I do the PS2 - a console with some really good games that also has an overwhelming amount of shit on it due to it's popularity.

It was an interesting concept that had great potential and actually had quite a few good games too (despite what many people here might claim). However the Wii was plagued by having a library almost filled to the brim with shovelware, misguided third party support, inferior versions of titles you could find on the Xbox and PS3, and a whole slew of other annoyances. And this is coming from someone who actually likes the Wii and has defended it in the past...

I still have my Wii and am not considering selling it at all, but in the end as a whole the Wii was a massive pile of wasted potential packed into an underpowered shell of a console. I still enjoyed it and believe it had more than just one or two good games like some people will try to claim, but it really wasn't a "good" console in the end when push comes to shove.

For me, overall negative:

Positive:
Wii remote in certain games was really fun. It made crappy and insultingly half-baked games, like Wii-sports to be actually fun for a while.
Compatibility with GameCube games. If you think that Sony and Microsoft are almost hostile towards backwards compatibility, kudos to Nintendo that treated gamers with some respect.
Wii attracted non gamers, or people that rarely played games and actually succeded to make them interested in games. If you think of it, they succeeded the impossible.

Negative:
Last generation graphics. Graphics are always important, regardless if most gamers publicly denounce them.
Wii remote and nun chunk were a real pain for those old fashioned guys like me that prefer the traditional controler, and don't see gaming as a gym session.
Relatively limited libtrary of games and obsession with the same old-new Mario games, over and over.
The same argument that was used in favour of Nintendo is also an argument against them: Nintendo started a very bad trend for the games industry in general: The "how to attract the casuals" campaign.

I love that little white box to death, and I'll be sad to see it go. I'll still be playing some of the bigger games (like Monster Hunter tri) on & off for a while, & I might even look into its back catalogue to see if there are any gems I've missed.

I had a wonderful time with my Wii.
I got to play the surperior versions (in my opinion) of Twilight Princess and Okami, thoroughly enjoyed the Goldeneye reboot, loved Super Smash Bros Brawl to death, and loved that it proved that HD graphics arent needed to be on top.

But the motion controls arent what sold me on the system. Sure they looked fun at first, and worked for what they did, but what really sold me, something that Sony and Microsoft utterly failed at, was that the Wii wasn't just a Wii. It was a,
Gamecube,
N64,
Snes,
and an NES.
All with spotless emulation. Sure I couldnt put my cartridges into the Wii, but I could still play Castlevania, Secret of Mana, Ocarina of time, and Wind Waker, alongside my Wii games.

Great console that will forever sit alongside my PS2 and Snes. My 360 may someday be sold, but I'm keeping my Wii.

it played Radiant Dawn, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword... that's it

it played Radiant Dawn, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword... that's it

Could've been great, as shown by the absolute brilliance of Metroid Prime 3. But it just didn't have enough good games.

The Wii was a bit of a face-palm factory. I really do feel sympathy for any kids who were bought this and tried defending it as a "proper" console to their PS3 and 360 owning friends. The sad thing is, the Wii - just like the DS - had the potential to cater for a variety of markets, and ended up predictably just falling back to the well-trodden territory of casual-friendly party games, gimmicky brain-training and Wii Fit pseudo-games, games for girls and toddlers, and Yet More Bloody Mario.

The Wii encompassed both the peak and decline of interest in motion control, and I think we can safely say that this particular gimmick has jumped the shark (memo to Microsoft: give up on Kinect until that god-damn face and voice recognition that bastard Molyneux promised us works properly). The Wii-U looking to touchscreen as its gimmick can hardly be called an innovation in this age of smartphone and tablet saturation.

They Wii has been nice. It was the underdog all the way, and a bit of a joke. But it was a nice addition in the long run I think.

It's life was hard, and very underwhelming. It's only this past year or so that it has really taken off. Sad really, Xeno-titles was what the Wii really needed. And it got it, right when it was dying.

I liked it, it was a neat little experiment in how we play and we learned a lot. Like you need good 3rd party support. Let's face it first party titles were why we bought a wii. as for motion controls, the pointer worked pretty well but the swinging was a bit more troublesome. I did notice something while playing skyward sword though, as I played, I got better at it. What I mean is that as I played the controls did what I wanted more and more. which makes me think that the main problem with the motion controls was that a decent wii game only came once in a while so every time I played I had to learn it again. I'm betting that if I put my 360 away for a while then came back to it 4 months later getting the controls down again would be a pain.

did I mention that the size maximum killed the wiiiware and the operation rainfall thing was handled poorly cause those things are true (I know 2 of them will see us shores but that's not the point)

A valiant effort that opened a door (among others) for casual gaming.

It should be lauded for the effort. What let it down was the shovelware that developers made for it.

The Wii was fantastic early on, but so many third party companies just jumped ship and we were left with very few new releases worth playing near the end of its life.

I respect what it did and what it tried to do. I also like that it's actually a game console, instead of these lame pseudo PC's that Sony and Microsoft are making. The appeal of consoles was to put in a game and play it. Not update firmware, then update the game, then sign on for online access, etc.

number2301:
In brief (cause I'm on my phone and I hate virtual keyboards) the main thing the Wii did for me is prove that motion controls aren't anything more than a gimmick. I've not seen a single compelling core experience which required motion controls.

Well done Nintendo, the Wii printed money, brought people who were never gamers into your target audience, and had the other companies scrambling to copy you. But lets move on.

rob_simple:
There wasn't a single game I played on the Wii that I wouldn't have enjoyed infinitely more using a normal controller. Even when the motion controls worked well, they never created immersion because there was no physical feedback save a tiny vibration and a sound effect.

I'm hoping that this whole motion control fad will wash over soon and we can go back to video games as recreational entertainment and not forced full-body cardio workouts.

Sorry, but motion controls are no more of a "gimmick" than the analogue stick or the mouse are, and not being required /= gimmick.

Sure, Skyward Sword could've been played on a dualshock or with a mouse and keyboard, but the problem is, it would've been shittier. There are plenty of games that used motion controls in a way that made the overall experience much more unique, and there are games that had mechanics that would've been awkward to control with anything but a gyroscope.

All the anti-motion controller talk I hear can be reduced to "I don't want to move when I play video games," which is fine, but it's a preference, and whenever anybody tries to bring any scientific reason as to why motion controls are wrong, they just sound really dumb to me.

Motion is the fundamental aspect of human control. All the games that we play are controlled by motion, whether you're moving your thumbs, your fingers, your wrist, or your entire body. The difference is in what we use to measure these movements and how acute and accurate these movements need to be, and I don't know about you, but just thinking about future possibilities (Kinect may not be a revolution, but it's a step in the right direction and it might give you some kind of idea of what the future may hold) makes the 360 controller look like quite the primitive piece of plastic to me.

Did you like Nintendo's direction?
Not particularly. I want to see a return to a normal controller.

Can motion controls be the future of gaming?
No. Motion control doesn't work well for everything, and more than a few games on the Wii and other platforms made that abundantly clear. More than a few times I found myself cursing finicky motion controls.

Did the lacking specs affect your opinion of it?
Not really. I didn't buy my Wii to become a member of my entertainment system. I bought it as a gaming system. Other format reading - nice but not at all necessary.

Despite its setbacks, where the exclusives up to standard?
Now that I've played Other M, I have to say - That game was written like a bad fanfic. The first party exclusives were pretty good, the rest.. less so.

Did you own one?
Yes.

Overall, what are your opinions on it?
It was an interesting experiment, but overall, the third party was lacking.

I'm ambivalent.

I respect what Nintendo did from a business and innovation stand point.

But I don't care.

EDIT:
Did you like Nintendo's direction?
Like; nope. Respect; yes.
Can motion controls be the future of gaming?
I guess it's possible, I don't think it's going to replace controllers, but it could be a nice addition.
Did the lacking specs affect your opinion of it?
Yep, it's probably got a lot to do with why I never got one for myself.
Despite its setbacks, where the exclusives up to standard?
I didn't play many, I don't care for the first party titles. I wasn't a Nintendo kid. I know plenty of people liked them, so yeah?
Did you own one?
No.
Overall, what are your opinions on it?
I don't care either way.

Electrogecko:

number2301:
In brief (cause I'm on my phone and I hate virtual keyboards) the main thing the Wii did for me is prove that motion controls aren't anything more than a gimmick. I've not seen a single compelling core experience which required motion controls.

Well done Nintendo, the Wii printed money, brought people who were never gamers into your target audience, and had the other companies scrambling to copy you. But lets move on.

rob_simple:
There wasn't a single game I played on the Wii that I wouldn't have enjoyed infinitely more using a normal controller. Even when the motion controls worked well, they never created immersion because there was no physical feedback save a tiny vibration and a sound effect.

I'm hoping that this whole motion control fad will wash over soon and we can go back to video games as recreational entertainment and not forced full-body cardio workouts.

Sorry, but motion controls are no more of a "gimmick" than the analogue stick or the mouse are, and not being required /= gimmick.

Sure, Skyward Sword could've been played on a dualshock or with a mouse and keyboard, but the problem is, it would've been shittier. There are plenty of games that used motion controls in a way that made the overall experience much more unique, and there are games that had mechanics that would've been awkward to control with anything but a gyroscope.

All the anti-motion controller talk I hear can be reduced to "I don't want to move when I play video games," which is fine, but it's a preference, and whenever anybody tries to bring any scientific reason as to why motion controls are wrong, they just sound really dumb to me.

Motion is the fundamental aspect of human control. All the games that we play are controlled by motion, whether you're moving your thumbs, your fingers, your wrist, or your entire body. The difference is in what we use to measure these movements and how acute and accurate these movements need to be, and I don't know about you, but just thinking about future possibilities (Kinect may not be a revolution, but it's a step in the right direction and it might give you some kind of idea of what the future may hold) makes the 360 controller look like quite the primitive piece of plastic to me.

The analog stick was a functional improvement because navigating a 3D space with a d-pad wasn't nearly as fluid. The mouse is a functional improvement because it improves things like aiming in FPS's and unit selection in RTS's. Motion controls in the current generation are just a gimmick because they don't even work properly in most of the games they're used in. Sure some games make them work (although I've never played one that didn't have at least one counter-intuitive motion), but for the most part they're just used as bells and whistles to hide the fact that Nintendo haven't innovated any actual in-game content in the last thirty odd years.

"Did you like Nintendo's direction?"

Yes. It was a bit of innovation. A bit of trying new ideas. It's better than letting games stagnate. Though I didn't buy it.

"Can motion controls be the future of gaming?"

I'd say that Wii style motion controls will prove to be fad. However, putting motion sensors in a standard controller would have some advantages. Playing Ocarina of Time on the 3DS, I noticed that it was very easy to aim by tilting the device. I think tilting the controller would be a very accurate way to aim in FPS games and would surpass the right analogue stick easily given half a chance.

"Did the lacking specs affect your opinion of it?"

I think Nintendo figured early on that the sort of people who would buy it would not worry too much about technical specs, but would appreciate anything that might make it cheaper. I think they made the right decision.

"Despite its setbacks, where the exclusives up to standard?"

Didn't play them.

"Did you own one?"

No

"Overall, what are your opinions on it?"

A bold experiment. I think the Wii-U will be a better games machine, but it will be building on the lessons of the Wii. Motion controls can be good, but not to the exclusion of buttons.

I still haven't gotten my $250 worth out of it.

It never appealed to me, so I went with the PS3 instead. One of my best friends had one and I was at her house fairly regularly and frequently played New Super Mario bros., House of the dead:Overkill and Resident Evil: Umbrella chronicles and I always found myself wanting a classic controller over the motion controls. I have House of the dead: Overkill for the PS3 and found myself enjoying it infinitely more because I wasn't swearing at the controls. Just my 2 cents.

My preference of console was Nintendo for a while. I had an N64 and a Gamecube. But the main reason I bought those consoles was for the Zelda games. When the Wii came out, the only Zelda game for it was already on Gamecube, so I saw no point. Then I started seeing the types of crappy games being released for the Wii, mainly "family" games with low-quality graphics. Then I saw the trailers for Skyward Sword, which looked like Wind Waker in the sky (both in terms of gameplay and graphics). Seriously, a game for a next-generation console shouldn't have WORSE graphics than its predecessor from a previous console. I've never bought a Wii. I never will.

I also want the motion-control fad to die. It's not more immersive, it's just cumbersome and the adds are creepy. Yahtzee pointed out that video games are already very immersive because the only step between thought and action was to press a button. Adding motion control makes it awkward and frustrating.

Finally, I'm getting sick of the "casual gamers" label. Gaming is a hobby, which means that ALL gamers (except for critics, reviewers, and testers) are "casual gamers," no matter how often you play or whether or not you play online.

Frankly my Wii lasted from 2006 to... 2008... I think. I can't remember as its still gathering dust.

MaxiP62:
I hate to say it, and I will sound like a dick, but you might be doing it wrong.

With FPS' on the Wii, you don't need to stick you arm out in the open for the entire time, just hold it like you would with an ordinary controller (In the position) but just keep it pointed to the TV, then just move it around a little and bingo your moving! I never had any problems with it, in fact I find it to be better than on normal consoles and closer to how a PC handles things. But I suppose it probably isn't to everyone's tastes.

My problem was actually that I was doing just that. Making repeated small movements from the wrist like that is no good (and is downright harmful if you have any sort of RSI problems like I do at the moment; I need to get a proper computer desk and chair). Moving from the elbow/shoulder is much better for your wrists and hands in the long run, as I learned from many, many years of piano, but it's tiring to the point of being impractical when playing games like that for any extended amount of time with your hands just floating in midair the entire time.

That said, in at least one way the Wii controller is more comfortable than others when it's not being used for any motion/pointer-related stuff. Because the two hands are split, you can put them wherever you want instead of needing to have them right next to each other. I've been playing games sometimes late at night while laying on the bed with one hand behind my bed and the other hanging off the side, because that's just where they happened to fall, and it was comfortable. A lot more than trying to use a normal controller or having to sit up would be, at least. Heh.

Concluding thoughts?
"Oh, yeah, that thing still exists."

Did you like Nintendo's direction? No
Can motion controls be the future of gaming? It could be, I hope it isn't because it's just not fun in most cases.
Did the lacking specs affect your opinion of it? Yes, because it left most devs unable to update their games or add content to it.
Despite its setbacks, where the exclusives up to standard? Metroid Prime 3 and Sonic Colors , Madworld were great, I didn't like much of the other titles.
Did you own one? Yes.
Overall, what are your opinions on it? A waste of my money, that's not to say it was bad but I just didn't enjoy the selection of games.

Side note: The most annoying thing to me is the console had the most controller options of any console to date (sort of) and it never gave the option to use it half the time. I would have loved to play Metroid Prime 3/any game with the classic controller or something rather than using the dumb as hell motion controls. I just wish they opened the options a bit.

MaxiP62:
Nintendo Wii 2006-2012

Did you like Nintendo's direction?
Can motion controls be the future of gaming?
Did the lacking specs affect your opinion of it?
Despite its setbacks, where the exclusives up to standard?
Did you own one?
Overall, what are your opinions on it?

1. I understood why Nintendo did what they did, they faced two companies that could throw money at their gaming machines while Nintendo could only do so much so they tried something different and it paid off even if the specs weren't on par, but they were excellent for standard def.

2. No, although for certain titles they can improve the experience if done right. Getting the sensitivities right on FPSs can be tricky and nausea inducing if done wrong but can elevate an experience when done right (and have the proper arm rest).

3. No, although I only had a standard def TV when I bought it. Playing it on my HDTV though, I was actually still impressed.

4. The exclusives were excellent, especially Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and DKCR.

5. I owned one since 2007 and still do.

6. As I said before, I think Nintendo did what it had to do to survive in a pretty nasty climate. Sony and Microsoft saw the HD revolution and literally threw money away to try to get the best graphical machine on the market and Nintendo realized they would probably go under if they didn't do something different, something they could actually afford to build and not only that, actually be cheap enough for people to buy.

I think motion control is a fad, but the best titles on Wii didn't even necessarily need it. The best titles on Wii did what they could with its modest hardware. But the additional features kept it running, with VC and GC support helping with the 'hardcore' audience.

The reason Nintendo didn't 'go after the hardcore' as some on this thread have complained, is that all of you 'hardcore' players wanted graphics and online play, which Nintendo wasn't ready for and couldn't compete. Graphics can only do so much (realistic brown and gray anyone?) and I could give a shit about online play, so the Wii was a capable machine. The shovelware was inevitable with the low price point and lower graphics bar, but the best titles were gems, on par with their HD cousins (which I'm playing now). Honestly, I think Nintendo, being a video game company (more so than their competitors), puts way more heart and soul into their machines and games. Hopefully their ingenuity keeps them in the game and doesn't force them to do what Sega did.

Nalgas D. Lemur:

MaxiP62:
I hate to say it, and I will sound like a dick, but you might be doing it wrong.

With FPS' on the Wii, you don't need to stick you arm out in the open for the entire time, just hold it like you would with an ordinary controller (In the position) but just keep it pointed to the TV, then just move it around a little and bingo your moving! I never had any problems with it, in fact I find it to be better than on normal consoles and closer to how a PC handles things. But I suppose it probably isn't to everyone's tastes.

My problem was actually that I was doing just that. Making repeated small movements from the wrist like that is no good (and is downright harmful if you have any sort of RSI problems like I do at the moment; I need to get a proper computer desk and chair). Moving from the elbow/shoulder is much better for your wrists and hands in the long run, as I learned from many, many years of piano, but it's tiring to the point of being impractical when playing games like that for any extended amount of time with your hands just floating in midair the entire time.

That said, in at least one way the Wii controller is more comfortable than others when it's not being used for any motion/pointer-related stuff. Because the two hands are split, you can put them wherever you want instead of needing to have them right next to each other. I've been playing games sometimes late at night while laying on the bed with one hand behind my bed and the other hanging off the side, because that's just where they happened to fall, and it was comfortable. A lot more than trying to use a normal controller or having to sit up would be, at least. Heh.

Ah I get you, didn't know that! Will keep that in mind! Each to their own I suppose.