How young is too young for a Nintendo Wii?

I am trying to decide if a Wii would be a good gift for my niece or not. What is the minimum age recommendation for it?

hmmm 4 to infiniti? I think I started gaming at 4...IDK :P.

it depends totally on the child, the wii is VERY fragile.

one fall from 2 feet will render it utterly useless

Six - Seven years old, I'd say. My five year old sister has a hard time holding the controller, but she still has fun playing Bowling or Frisbee.

^^ Blatant lie. Perhaps it varies, but mine has suffered plenty of falls during its lifetime and it's still alive and kicking.

I started gaming at 6-7 with a gameboy and pokemon. So perhaps a DS would be a better start?

No real age limit for the Wii. Just make sure you check the age rating for individual games and see what they're rated for.

If your kid tries to eat the Wii Remote instead of understanding that it's used to play games, then your kid is too young. :P

as long as she /he is able to hold things a wii is fine , get mario or somthing , i started at 2 and a half maybe 3 ,

of course my real gaming started around the time i was 5 and or 6 , (when i started collecting games)

it depends totally on the child, the wii is VERY fragile.

one fall from 2 feet will render it utterly useless

xXl_z3r0_lXx

it depends totally on the child, the wii is VERY fragile.

one fall from 2 feet will render it utterly useless

xXl_z3r0_lXx

Which would be a problem if you played with the console but no one does that

Thankfully you use the Wiimote and chuk

Considering that the Wii is aimed at children and other people just starting to play games I'd say once they can read you're good so age 3 and up

[QUOTE="xXl_z3r0_lXx"]

it depends totally on the child, the wii is VERY fragile.

one fall from 2 feet will render it utterly useless

Jaysonguy

Which would be a problem if you played with the console but no one does that

Thankfully you use the Wiimote and chuk

Considering that the Wii is aimed at children and other people just starting to play games I'd say once they can read you're good so age 3 and up

really do you got anything better to do than say a bunch of bs? dude seriously... any person can play any system knowing how to hit the buttons...

I'd say 5-7.

Fetus. Don't even try it at that age.

I've seen four-year olds get yelled at by six-year olds while playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii together. As long as your niece is old enough to know what's going on, even if she isn't good at it, she can have fun with it.

whenever theyre interested i guess if they like itthen yes. if they cant get the hang of it wait till later

I initially thought "when they're old enough to read", but then I remembered my first games were racing ones on our PC, back when monitors were in glorious black-and-yellow.

I've worked with kids from a pretty wide range of ages. I think about 6 or 7 is a pretty good age to start gaming. If you know there will be someone playing with them though, you could go as early as you wanted to, assuming they know what the hell is going on.

hmmm 4 to infiniti? I think I started gaming at 4...IDK :P.

NaveedLife

A small child might find it hard to handle the controllers comfortably, but I have seen smaller versions of the controllers available. Basically, if they're old enough to appreciate a game on the Wii, they're old enough to play it.

I'm sure everyones different. I'm told I could beat the first SMB at age 3 or 4.

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

[QUOTE="xXl_z3r0_lXx"]

it depends totally on the child, the wii is VERY fragile.

one fall from 2 feet will render it utterly useless

rcafan

Which would be a problem if you played with the console but no one does that

Thankfully you use the Wiimote and chuk

Considering that the Wii is aimed at children and other people just starting to play games I'd say once they can read you're good so age 3 and up

really do you got anything better to do than say a bunch of bs? dude seriously... any person can play any system knowing how to hit the buttons...

It does depends on the games you get her. I played Duke Nukem 3D when I was three years old. I started playing while sitting on my dad's lap, he would move and interact with everything and I would shoot anything that moved, after awhile I figured out how to run the game from our desktop, move in the game, and open doors and activate switches so I played on my own after that. However (hopefully this doesn't sound offensive to your niece, if it does I'm sorry) I was a pretty smart kid and was good at teaching myself things. I knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and basic division before I entered elementary school because my sister's would give me problems and laughed at me because I didn't understand, so I taught myself how they would work.

Some of the Mario games should be easy enough to pick up and play for your niece. I think she would enjoy Pokepark, it's not a bad game just very simple so it won't hold an adult's interest for as long but I bet a kid would enjoy it. Think about party games as well, Boom Blox, Mario Party, and Wario Ware are great choices.

So make sure you think about what you're getting her before you buy. You don't want to buy her Zelda if she has problems with reading. You don't want to buy her No More Heroes or Mad World for obvious reasons (If you don't know what those games are, they are very bloody, violent, and have suggestive content)

Probably 5, although my 2 year old is starting to get some gaming skills already so it depends on the kid.

I am trying to decide if a Wii would be a good gift for my niece or not. What is the minimum age recommendation for it?

Time_Child

There is no MINIMUM age per se, but I'd say 4/5 is too young. My mother has a daycare kid here, and I let him play Mario Kart Wii a couple of times and he seriously struggles to finish a race and is always last. He's 5.

HOWEVER, with that said, although he does get a little frustrated that he doesn't do better, he always looks forward to playing the game.

If your kid tries to eat the Wii Remote instead of understanding that it's used to play games, then your kid is too young. :P

GabuEx

What this guy said. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to tell parents that a gaming system even made for a mass audience has some restrictions.

If your kid tries to eat the Wii Remote instead of understanding that it's used to play games, then your kid is too young. :P

GabuEx

I would say after 3 or 4 years old depending on the game. I remember I taught my 3 year old niece how to beat the first level of Donkey Kong Country for GBA, but my brother's step-son is 7 and he lost 68 lives on the first level of NSMB Wii and gave up, we were giving him directions like when to jump and enemies approaching and he would still die.

There is no MINIMUM age per se, but I'd say 4/5 is too young. My mother has a daycare kid here, and I let him play Mario Kart Wii a couple of times and he seriously struggles to finish a race and is always last. He's 5.

HOWEVER, with that said, although he does get a little frustrated that he doesn't do better, he always looks forward to playing the game.

darksongbird

Start playing the wii at 5 years old. Would be my guess...

it depends. some kids really pick up on technology VERY fast. my neice is 3 and she can operate an Iphone better than most people. but a wii isnt quite as simple, so i'd think 5 yrs old or something. you can play wii with a 3 or 4 yr old, but you cant expect them to handle the discs and know how to take good care of it. 4+ supervision or 5 on their own is my guess really.

it depends. some kids really pick up on technology VERY fast. my neice is 3 and she can operate an Iphone better than most people. but a wii isnt quite as simple, so i'd think 5 yrs old or something. you can play wii with a 3 or 4 yr old, but you cant expect them to handle the discs and know how to take good care of it. 4+ supervision or 5 on their own is my guess really.

Talldude80

I say 4 and up. If you dont want the Wii falling (let me tell you that the Wii is very deriable, my first Wii fell like more than 10 times in 3 years and didnt break, till I tried playing Brawl, thats when it went down hill, though now with my new wii, it has fallen like 3 times, and has not broken, nor is any damage visible), whenever playing a game where the controllers being used are wired to the system, put it on the ground laying on its base, not standing in its stand, that way it wont fall.