Nintendo has a long and lumpy history in the videogame industry. The longest, actually, as the company was originally founded way back in 1889, producing a playing card game called Hanafuda.

The company started making games software for arcade and home platforms as early as 1978 (having failed at such dubious ventures such as a taxi service and a hotel chain as well as the sole distributor of the doomed Magnavox Odyssey console in 1975) but truly burst into the videogame scene in 1985 with the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which to this day is hailed as the second coming of the videogames - the industry had all but crashed around 1983. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) followed in 1990/91, which matched its predecessor in popularity.

By the mid-90s, however, the competition in the home console space was fierce, with rivals such as Sega and then Sony showing equal or greater marketing savvy as well advanced hardware more easily touted as "sexy" to Nintendo's "cute & cuddly" - a comparison that still plagues the company today.

Nintendo followed with the Nintendo64 in 1996 and the GameCube in 2001. Both systems sold well enough to be considered viable, some 32 million and 24 million respectively, but placed dead last to Sony's PlayStations and, later, Microsoft's Xbox.

During this time, Nintendo had gained a reputation for being difficult to work with, too. 3rd party game developers lamented each system's propriety formats as expensive to develop games for and eventually stopped developing them. Without 3rd party support, Nintendo's games library suffered greatly and general consumers saw little reason to invest in a system with dozens of games when there were hundreds of games available on other systems.

Still, Nintendo sustained itself with a series in internally developed titles that almost always came off as blockbusters in their own right. Furthermore, Nintendo also has a well-earned reputation not just for games innovation with iconic, family-friendly characters like Mario and Pokemon (all of them collectively, that is), but for hardware innovations, too. While the NES controller verily invented the "gamepad" interface as we know it, the controllers for both the N64 and the GameCube - both considered oddball and weird when released - are to this day regarded by many as the most comfortable and most intuitive interfaces ever made for gameplay.

It's also important to note that when Nintendo sells "only" 24 million GameCubes, that's reason to celebrate, because games is all it does. Nintendo is not in the business of offsetting losses from discontinued TV sets of massive battery recalls, nor does it need to sink billions of dollars into marketing campaigns to convince the public that it's cool and just makes PC operating systems on the side. Nintendo is a videogame company, period. Though "PlayStation" is firmly entrenched in the interactive entertainment lexicon, Nintendo is still a name synonymous with videogames, because no one remembers the company doing anything else but videogames.

It helps, of course, that Nintendo dominates the handheld game sector and has done so for nearly twenty years with both the Game Boy brand and now the recently minted Nintendo DS - the latter of which is further evidence of Nintendo knack for hardware innovation that seems goofy at face value yet becomes categorically beloved once people get their hands on it.

Now, another reason Nintendo is not a company known to lose money is the fact that Nintendo hardware never pushes any technological envelopes and instead utilizes commonly available components, albeit in new and innovative ways.

So it follows that the new Nintendo Wii is about as far removed from the cutting-edge of technology as you as you can get while still maintaining a semblance of "next generation." It's roughly twice as powerful as its predecessor, the GameCube, and only just as powerful the original Xbox.

Wii doesn't do DVD movies or high definition, either - though a special edition Wii that does play DVD movies is expected out next year. Otherwise, Nintendo is banking on the fact that there's still a few people, perhaps a few billion people that haven't bought a plasma TV yet, so standard definition Wii games and the generic DVD player they already own will have to do. They might be on to something there...

Anyway, that's also why the Wii is readily available, because it's easy to make, assemble, mass-produce, and why it's so quiet and energy efficient. It's also why it's so cheap, just US$249.99 or C$279.99, which is equivalent to a bag of that stuff they feed chickens.

Meanwhile, to offset what appears to be a glaring deficiently in horsepower, Wii makes up for it in stark, raving innovation.

Totally dropping the gamepad form factor, Wii's primary controller is a familiar-looking candy-bar shaped thing that looks suspiciously like a standard TV remote control. Though there are conventionally functioning buttons on the thing, this "Wii-mote" detects motion and rotation in three dimensions, and that translates to motion in Wii games - think swinging a sword or tennis racket, aiming a gun or launching a left hook, that sort of thing.

Tellingly, however, early testers and previewers of the Wii have already complained of fatigue after an hour or two of Wii-mote playing. Presumably, users are expected to build up some tolerance after a while - assuming they don't get frustrated or bored. There's also a conventional gamepad controller that will allow for Wii-play in the conventional way.

Wii-mote novelty aside, the Wii has a couple other tricks up it sleeve to appeal to the masses.

First is broadband connectivity that remains active even of the system is in standby and allows for access to updates and multimedia content to load to the Wii while you sleep. More importantly is these downloads themselves, which include a large batch of "retro games" from Nintendo's heyday - some from Sega's too -, each bought for a few bucks to be played anew on Wii. Plus, it will play GameCube game discs, a peace offering for those forced to suffer Nintendo's lackluster years.

Truth is, Nintendo can't lose. Wii is cheap enough to be an afterthought meant for the kids and the spare TV in the basement, and lots of people have one of those - TVs that is, probably multiple kids, too. But it's just as likely to take over the family room or the living room where interactive entertainment is fun for everyone every Friday night and twice on Sunday. Cute & cuddly fun, maybe, but there's more than enough cuddle-lovers in the world to put Nintendo back on top.

Nintendo Wii in Bullet Time

The Goods

• The only truly affordable game system


• Works as the both the primary and the secondary game system in the house


• stark raving innovation through and through


• ready to play on regular tv


• hardcore gamers will hate it, but that leaves everyone else on the planet to love it


The Greif

• Gimmicky controller; novelty may wear off (or wear players out)


• Wimp horsepower


• No DVD (yet) or HDTV functionality


• After two poor showings, Nintendo has a big hole to dig itself out of and is very much dependant on 3rd party support


Should you buy it?

• Absolutely. This is trans-generational fun for the masses. Even if you tire of it and relegate it to the basement TV, you'll likely not feel ripped off for the price you paid.

Also see:

• Console Wars '06 - Historically Speaking


• Console Wars '06 - Exhibit A: The Xbox 360


• Console Wars '06 - Exhibit B: The PlayStation 3


• Console Wars '06 - Exhibit C: The Nintendo Wii


• Console Wars '06 - Exhibit D: The Windows PC