The Nintendo Wii, 14 years later - Review

the nintendo wii was launched in the november of 2006 and took a different approach to the video gaming market especially compared to the playstation 3 and xbox 360. instead of your typical controller the we utilized motion controls which is something that had never been done before or at least done well hey how's it going i'm josh from 91 tech and today we're taking a look at the nintendo wii how does it hold up in 2020 [Music] the nintendo wii is one of the few video game consoles to not only hit the mainstream of gaming culture but pop culture in general the wii was an icon it was something your grandparents would hear about one of the original ads for the wii i think described it perfectly it involved two random men just showing up to people's houses with a wii people let them into their homes and soon enough they were all just having a good time playing tennis on their tv it's a ridiculous ad and hasn't changed well especially considering current events but it really works here because it shows how accessible this console was and how everyone could just pick up and play it this video might be meant to look at the wii in 2020 but i don't intend just to show how it holds up today obviously it's old it doesn't hold up that great graphics especially aren't very good thanks to the lack of high definition capabilities so today we are going to talk about that but we're also going to talk about how the console got here in the first place are you a certified 2000s kid even if you're not you probably played the wii at some point or another it was a cultural phenomenon when it came out and as just mentioned what really made it so mainstream was how accessible it was for pro gamers motion controls might have seemed silly but for everyone else they made a lot of sense you didn't have to sit down and learn how to play the game you just played the game playing wii sports tennis hit the ball with the wiimote it made sense there was no learning curve and that's why people loved it believe it or not the wii actually massively outsold both the xbox 360 and ps3 with over 101 million units shipped this is still one of the best selling consoles of all time wii sports is one of the best selling video games of all time too with over 80 million units sold in large part because they were bundled with the wii but still that's an insane number and it's why the wii is such a cultural icon plus let's be real here the wii itself was kind of awesome who doesn't love the me channel theme song or actually any of the music from the wii seriously it's all pretty good [Music] the design of the wii is pretty basic it's a simple white box with a gray stand so you can set it up right we have a good variety of ports on the back two usb av multi-out for connecting to your tv dc input for power and the red sensor bar port the sensor bar is worth talking about it's pretty basic being a gray bar that sits on the top or under your tv you need it to use motion controls or do you did you know you can actually just use two candles instead of a light bar seriously you can try it if you want basically the wii sensor actually doesn't do very much your wiimote acts as an infrared sensor and the bar just has led lights in it the wiimote sees the light and uses it as a reference point to understand the movement of your controller no actual data is transmitted and so you can just use candles instead does this have anything to do with how the wii holds up in 2020 not really but i found it interesting but back to the console on the top of the older wiis we have gamecube controller ports so you can use your old gamecube controller we also have a few memory card slots on the front of the wii we have the power button reset button disk tray that glows blue eject button and then under this flap we have the sync button and an sd card slot the sd card slot is very helpful especially because with it we can easily homebrew the system and do basically anything we want which i'll talk more about later this is the original wii which is by and far the most robust but there are other wii's out there this one is the best because it's backwards compatible with gamecube titles and can use gamecube accessories while newer models can't this one the rvl101 was released in 2011 and mostly came in black then in late 2012 nintendo decided to squeeze the last bit of possible money out of the wii with this the wii mini at least 2012 for canada and then it came out in 2013 for the us the wii mini is actually in my opinion the best looking version of the wii it's matte black with a red trim and it's really nice unfortunately the looks don't tell the whole story as this is by and far the worst wii you can buy there's no online functionality which is pretty unheard of for a console from 2012 sure you probably don't need online for your wii at least now but back then if this was going to be your only console it would have been a bit of a bummer netflix on wii for example was a popular way to watch plus without online you couldn't access the nintendo store at all and then of course there's no gamecube functionality generally i'd say just avoid the wii mini just because if you want one to collect the original one is a better choice that said this wii mini was actually a pretty decent deal for the time it came with a controller nunchuck all for 99 bucks hard to argue with that and for some people the appeal of buying this plugging it in putting in a game and playing it was all you needed and holy heck are there a ton of games to choose from the wii has one of the most massive game libraries out there which means by default most of them completely suck but there's also a ton of amazing classics some of the highlights include mario galaxy 1 and 2 mario kart wii zelda twilight princess wii sports and wii sports resort super smash brothers brawl new super mario bros wii super paper mario xenoblade chronicles sonic colors donkey kong country returns and so many more these are games you very well might have fond memories of because they were so popular this unique console brought some really unique titles a lot of which haven't held up very well but the ones i just mentioned i think have at least gameplay wise graphically the wii is not exactly good it falls behind both the xbox 360 and ps3 in this department as it can't output hd video so playing the wii on a modern tv just doesn't look good and everything's kind of fuzzy with the power of emulation we can actually produce wii games at a full 4k if we'd really like to like mario kart here i believe a lot of the textures are redone as well and i actually think it looks pretty great not my video by the way and i'll link the source in the description emulation is an option for the wii with an app called dolphin and it's a pretty popular way to play but still there's just something about grabbing your wiimote and selecting a game using motion controls that was so magical back in the day and honestly is still kind of magical to me of course the motion controls that the wii brought are still available in some forms today some switch games still have motion controls like mario odyssey for example i've never been a fan of motion controls for the sake of motion controls as they tend to be kind of gimmicky but i've found that switch games have utilized it well which is nice to see also virtual reality right now uses basically much better versions of wiimotes to do everything so even if the wii isn't so great anymore its motion control legacy lives on in these newer platforms i do think that we tried too hard with motion controls when it came to some titles but others incorporated it really well like mario galaxy and while a lot of games that based everything emotion controls weren't very good some games like wii sports are just fantastic interesting fact the wii still has games being made for it specifically one game just dance 2020. second interesting fact the wii u doesn't have any games being made for it including just dance 2020. this means that the 2006 wii has outlived the 2012 wii u so that's kind of crazy but let's take a look at the controller there's the original wiimote and then there's the wiimote with motion plus which provides much better tracking and i'd say as a must-have if you're still playing wii you can get extensions to have more of a regular type controller experience which is nice you can also get gamecube controllers you can plug into your wemo which is pretty cool for power the wiimote uses two double a batteries so if you had this along with an xbox 360 back in the day you were probably constantly struggling to have enough batteries the controller itself is interesting to me the name wemo makes a lot of sense because this looks more like a remote than a controller it's rectangular and is really meant to be moved around for games like wii sports the button scheme is pretty strange it can be held sideways to be like a regular controller kind of you get a d-pad a button a plus and minus button and the one and two button on the back you have the b trigger this is an extremely weird control scheme and you can tell nintendo is looking for more simple mass appeal as opposed to the normal layout of most controllers there's also a home button a power button and a speaker which is kind of neat of course you couldn't have a wiimote without a nunchuck extension this added a joystick and was a necessary add-on for many games if you had an original wii you could plug in an actual gamecube controller and if not you could always get an accessory that plugs directly into the wii controller as mentioned before now i'm not gonna say the controller is the strongest suit for this console because it's pretty weird for typical type games but for nintendo titles and anything that used motion controls it was pretty great we haven't really seen a controller too similar to this since a single switch controller is kind of similar in that some games have you holding it like a wiimote but it still has a joystick and is typically held sideways the wiimote is a unique aspect of the wii that hasn't aged the best but definitely stands out now graphics are super disappointing regardless of how old this is hd is something that was done on the ps3 and xbox 360. it would have been nice to see here because the games would look a lot better but nintendo doesn't care about making the most technically impressive games and i think there's a lot of charm in that lower grade hardware meant the wii was cheaper making it more accessible for more people and that mixed with the easy to play and interesting gimmick of motion controls pushed the wii to around 101 million units sold that's an absurd number and blows both the ps3 and 360 out of the water even if those two do have better looking games graphics don't hold up but the gameplay does and there's still a ton of fun breaking out wii sports when you have people over or even by yourself the wii proved you don't need the best hardware to have a great gaming experience and that is still absolutely true today the nintendo switch has been the must-have console ever since it came out in 2017 and will continue to be that even with the release of the ps5 and new xbox does it have the best graphics no does it have the most games no does it have fun gameplay and great nintendo exclusives yes does it have a killer feature that gives it broad appeal yes it's portability the wii didn't have portability but it had the accessibility of motion controls that even got your grandparents interested this was the family console to have for years and in 2020 it's still fun to pull out of your closet once in a while and go on a nostalgia trip and if you really want to play some of those old classic titles in hd or 4k you can always load them up on your pc with dolphin and have a pretty great time but if you want the most authentic wii playing experience you could always just buy a week because they're super cheap turning to ebay.com we're looking at around 30 to 50 bucks to get a console with all the peripherals and a controller or two that's not bad and if you get the original model which is the rvl001 you can also play gamecube games plus what's really great about the wii is that you can homebrew any model that includes the wii mini it doesn't have an sd card slot but there is another way to do it with bluetooth the homebrew channel is one of the coolest hacks on any console there's so much you can do with the wii such as the emulation of old consoles like the nes snes and genesis so maybe do yourself a favor and if you're stuck at home like the rest of us pull out your old wii and try some old classics you might be surprised how much fun you end up having but with that i think i'm pretty much done here did you ever have a wii what was your favorite game let me know in the comments down below there's a lot more i could have talked about like all the ridiculous accessories that we had like guns and steering wheels and that kind of thing but maybe another time if you found this video interesting maybe hit that like button and consider subscribing for more content just like this you can follow me over on twitter and instagram 91 underscore tech if you'd like to for some reason without all being said thank you so much for watching i'm josh from 91 tech and i will see you all next time [Music] you

Channel: 91Tech

Views: 588,144

Keywords: wii, wii in 2020, 2020, wii 2020, review, 2020 review, wii review, nintendo, nintendo wii, in 2020, wii mini, wii sports, mario, brawl, nintendo switch

Id: JzgG69Bu1Hs

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020