It seems that recently I've come across many people who own/plan to own a Nintendo Wii, one of whom is my parents. Now I know what's going to happen if/when they get it. They'll have me come home and hook it up for them, we'll play Wii sports for an hour or two, I'll rent Madworld and try that out, and then the console will collect dust next to our TV. My sister will be given it when she goes off to college and she'll use it to play Wii Sports when friends are around, and that will be the end of it. And looking around and talking to Wii owners, this seems to be the trend with most of them. Now of course there are exceptions. Several friends of mine own the Wii, and have very vast (compared to Wii sports) and diverse collections. Personally I'm always up for some Smash Brothers, and am curious about games like Madworld, Onechanbara, Fatal Frame 4, and Sadness, to name a few. However the Wii has an inherit problem which I'm sad to say isn't going anywhere, because it's how it was designed and is there because it's what Nintendo wants to do. This problem is its reliance on the motion controller gimmick, going past being a crutch to being a transplanted vital organ. Almost every game needs to use the motion sensing for lack of actual buttons on the controller, which may not be a problem if it weren't for the very hit-and-miss motion sensing the wiimote seems to have. Many games are notorious for their motion controls being way off base (several shooter games and a fighter in a galaxy far far away come to mind). Indeed almost all these games seem to have problems, but there are several shining examples of how to do it right. Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Zelda Twilight Princess, it seems that Nintendo knows what they're doing. And why not, they make the damn thing right? Of the top 10 rated Wii games according to gamespot, Nintendo made half of them (Smash Brothers, Mario Galaxy, Warioware, Super Paper Mario, and Twilight Princess). Microsoft only had its developing hand in 1 of the top 10 360 titles (3 if you count publishing Gears 1 & 2) and Sony has only 2 first-party games among its consoles best (excluding LittleBigPlanet). So what does this say? To me its saying that Nintendo is shutting out third-party developers in a big way, which would explain why they made the Wii so low-tech compared to the 360 & PS3. Odds are they've had this idea brewing for years before the Gamecube came to release, maybe even as far back as the N64, SNES, or NES. With anywhere from years to decades head start, it's no wonder they're cranking out excellent games compared to third-parties. Getting back to the low-tech comment, they had to make it as inexpensive to produce and create for as possible, knowing that throwing everyone such a curveball would hinder the games released for the Wii that Nintendo wasn't involved with. Thanks to this, they can crank out games faster than they would for PS3 or 360 and crank them out for less, meaning a greater potential for profit. Problem is, while Nintendo is raking in the money, many companies trying to make a living off (insert wii game here) are being outclassed and demolished by Mario & company because they have this advantage. It may sound a bit crazy, but the Wii could be considered a pyramid scheme targeting game developers when placed under this light. But after a failed game or two money is getting tight in the company and they can't afford to make a game for anything other than the Nintendo and have a reasonable chance to stand out and sell. This is really worrying to me because if this continues, we may get to a point where developers are much more unwilling to take risks to the point that if it's not a sequel to a great-selling game or it's not made by a first-party, it will not be made.

Just a thought.