New Media Technology-The Facts

For the full infomation on the Wii i will gather facts from Wikipedia and anywhere else i find such as the Wii website.
Outline: The Wii menu is a 3x4 grid that contains all the channels included with the console as well as slots for future channels to be added to. The first channel is the basic game channel which plays the game inserted in to the console (these can be Wii or the older Gamecube games as the Wii is backwards compatible). The second channel is the Mii channel which allows people to create avatars of themselves or other people providing a greater level of personalisation, the Miis created in this channel are used in some games like Wii sports or the more recent Wii Fit. The third channel is a photo channel which allows people to alter there photos by inserting an SD card in to the Wii. The forth channel is the Wii shoping channel which accesses the Wii network and allows you to download games from older Nintendo consoles using Wii points, the game downloaded will take up a Wii channel slot on the main menu. The fifth and sixth channels provide worldwide coverege of the news and weather. As well as these basic channels there are also channels that can be downloaded from the Wii shopping channel such as the internet channel. Some games also come with channel attachments like Wii Fit.

Reviews: The Wii reciecved the most favroable reviews of any of the next generation consoles when previewed. Currently the Wii has one seven awards for it's system but most of these awards are for it's hardware like the Wii channels. The creator of The Sims Will Write said that "The only next gen system I've seen is the Wii – the PS3 and the Xbox 360 feel like better versions of the last, but pretty much the same game with incremental improvement. But the Wii feels like a major jump – not that the graphics are more powerful, but that it hits a completely different demographic." The Wii has also been criticised for a lack of third party support, Free Radical Design stated that the Wii hardware lacks the power necessary to run the software they have scheduled for release on other seventh generation consoles.

Pros and Cons: To break down the Wii in to an easy to understand console i will lst the pros and cons that people have commented on.
Pros-The Wii is the most inuative next generation console due to it's motion controls, the worldwide success of Wii has shown game developers that it is not enough to release the same game with slightly better graphics every few years, the Wii is more physically demanding than other consoles and it appeals to a completely different demographic of people opening up the games market.
Cons-There is a lack of third party support for games with high quality graphics, the sound system used in the controllers is weaker than it should be, online connectivity is unintuitive so far and some developers failed to take the Wii seriously upon it's release producing some low quality release games.

Statistics: It is clear from the sales statistics that the problems of the Wii critics are not strongly supported by the consumers. The Wii now dominates the UK games market having 41.6% of console sales, in europe it has sold around 3 million console by the end of last year. In England the Wii was under shiped when it first arrived as it sold out in it's first day leading to high internet prices because there was still huge demand for the console. The Wii has currently sold over 20.13 million sales worldwide as of the end of december last year. As of september last year the Wii became the most popular of all next generation consoles according to the Financial Times.