Next generation video game console from Nintendo. Codenamed “Revolution,” which I find a much better name than the made-up and joke prone “Wii,” pronounced “Wheeeeee!” I get the idea and punny nature of the name, ‘whee’ as in ‘you haven’t had this much fun since you were three and your dad pushed you on the swingset’ and also ‘we’ as in ‘all of us.’

Image from Nintendo.com

Nintendo is marketing the Wii (and the Nintendo DS handheld before it) as a gaming system for non-gamers as well as gamers. The DS, for example, has titles available for it from everything from virtual pets to brain exercises to cooking to dating. I suspect the Wii will see similiar, non-traditional gaming titles.

The big thing about the Wii is its controller, dubbed the ‘Wii-mote.’ The size of a TV remote and held the same way, the Wii’s controller works with a bar that is placed under or over the TV and reports its position in space. This allows free movement in a virtual reality kind of way, as you make gestures like moving a tennis racket to hit a ball or pulling on a fishing pole to snag a fish.

The Wii is backwards-compatible with the Gamecube, including the ability to use its wired or wireless controllers (though they won’t be able to do the nifty 3d space awareness). It also includes online access, including the Opera web browser, as well as a Nintendo Console store that will allow buying, downloading, and playing old-school Nintendo games from the NES, SNES, and N64.

Resources

• How the Wii was born from Ars.Technica
• A Look at the Wii Hardware, a video on YouTube looking at the ports on the Wii, the Wii-mote, and the nunchuk accessory.
• The CNN Money Review
• Mark Frauenfelder, co-editor of BoingBoing, gives his impressions
• MacWorld’s hands-on impressions. They think it’s a lot of fun.
• InformIT’s review where they actually take the thing apart.
• A Wii Experience by a “gamer dad” who after playing with it and observing his children and friends with it, thinks it is “a new era for gaming.”
• The predictably excellent Ars Technica review
• Rui’s Wii entry at The Tao of Mac. He finally bought one.
• Slashdot’s “Zonk” gives his report after two weeks with the Wii
• Jason Kottke gives his first thoughts
• Two months later, Ars Technica takes another look at the Wii after the honeymooon. (hint: they still love it)
• Steven Johnson, author of “The Ghost Map,” has his five thoughts
• Nintendo has a series of in-depth articles on the Wii’s development and early days.