WHEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

The Wii (pronounced "wee") from Nintendo arrived in stores this weekend, and I do not own one. I thought about it, and if I still had a salary I'm sure I would, but money is an issue, and there's a lot of hype to wade through before we find out what this thing can really do, so I'm holding off. Eventually, probably, just not now. We'll see what develops.

In the meantime, it's probably about time I finally talk to YOU about this device. I have mentioned it a number of times, always promising to devote an entry to it later. Well, this is that entry. [Those of you who do not play videogames, stick with me, this might be interesting to you, too. Maybe. Nintendo certainly hopes so.]

What is the Wii and why am I excited about it?

The Wii is Nintendo's newest video game console. As they would have it, however, it's a console for everyone, not just gamers. The Wii brings something new to gaming, a control system centered around motion-sensing. They've done other things as well, such as introducing a revamped "channel" interaction system (get the weather every morning from your Wii), providing connectivity for wireless networks, and offering every previous Nintendo game as downloadable content. That's all nice (well more than nice, even if the wifi option shows little signs of any actual application in the games themselves yet), but the Big Deal is the motion-controller - known as the Wiimote.

There is a concept in gaming, and I'm including other types of gaming besides the electronic, known as "Orthogonal Unit Differentiation" (I'm stealing most of this paragraph, to a greater or lesser degree from a powerpoint presentation by Harvey Smith of Ion Storm). It refers to the creation of game units with different functions or abilities along entirely different "orthogonal" axes. This means the abilities are not just different but non-stackable so that no amount of Unit A will ever be able to compensate for a lack in Unit B. Imagine three games units - a Soldier, a Big Soldier, and a Boat. The Soldier does 4 damage to enemy units. The Big Soldier does 8 damage to enemy units, and the Boat enables other units to cross water terrain. Two Soldiers can replace one Big Soldier, but no amount of Soldiers will ever reproduce the abilities of the Boat, and no amount of Boats will ever be able to reproduce the abilities of the Soldiers. Thus Boat and Soldier are orthogonal. The Soldier and the Big Soldier are not.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it turns out that this concept has application outside of games. It's actually a pretty useful design concept in general and in this discussion applies to the consoles themselves instead of the games they run.

The last company to introduce what I consider to be an orthogonal development, an additional ability that grants players access to something new instead of simply improving what already exists, was Microsoft with their "Xbox Live" online service. This time it's Nintendo. To see what I mean first look at the other consoles. The Playstation 3 came out last week as well. It represents a significant jump forward in graphics capability, data storage, and processing speed over the Playstation 2. The Xbox 360 (which came out around this time last year) is also a large leap forward in graphics, data storage, and processing speed over the original Xbox, and includes some additional features and options for the Xbox Live service. Both of these consoles are taking steps along existing axes, and the biggest steps (or in Sony's case, only steps) are along the processing power axis. These two consoles are competing head to head, and they have determined that this is the arena and these are the measurements which define victory. They're going from Soldier to Big Soldier. Nintendo seems to have shrugged, and said "Well, that's nice, but what about Boats?" The Wii barely surpasses the Gamecube (Nintendo's previous console) in processing power, but Nintendo has decided to proceed along a different axis, specifically, the controls.

The Xbox controls and the PS3 controls haven't changed much in several generations. They are, and always have been, buttons and joysticks. There have been minor modifications (more buttons, a vibration feature, a more ergonomic grip) but no significant differences. The Wiimote does something new. It detects and responds to motions in three axes - up/down, left/right, and forward/back. This means making a swatting motion with the controller to play a tennis game, thrusting to stab an enemy with a sword, or pointing to aim a gun. That's a very new experience. It's also (hopefully) much more intuitive than the current buttons and joysticks arrangement. Nintendo has stepped away from the powergamer and is hoping to woo the non-gamers, those people who haven't played games because they simply do not enjoy them. No amount of improved graphics is going to draw in such a person, but a new way to play just might.

We'll see if it does. As I said, Nintendo has introduced a number of other refinements and most of them seem aimed at distancing themselves from the "traditional" console approach. I'm very interested to see how this turns out. I'm also very interested to play a swordfighting game where I actually get to swing a sword.