Nintendo Wii

Nintendo's Wii is looking good. The design is innovative. The price is right. Perhaps I finally have reason to acquire a television.

The main thing I like about this console and about Nintendo in general is that they realise that super-fantastic graphics do not equate to fun. The competitors seem to be overly conservative in terms of rehashing the same old formulas over and over again with better graphics, expecting people to basically buy the "same" games year after year.

Not that Nintendo isn't guilty of this at times: The whole Mario Bros. saga and the Mario Kart games come to mind. But with innovations like the DS, and the various brain-training games, rhythm games, puzzle games and more, I continue to lean more toward Nintendo than to Sony or Microsoft.

I think the bottom line is that Nintendo has a better idea about why most people play games than the competition. It's because they want to have fun ways of interacting with other people. The gaming experience facilitates a social interaction. That's part of why games like Donkey Konga are insane riots even though they're relatively simple and not high on the shiny graphics.

Yes, I think the Wii is for me.