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Wii, the videogame console is widely popular in the United States and is currently sold out too. We managed to find one available online at Sears during the Memorial Day sale (it arrives today). Admittedly our decision was influenced by the fitness angle that usually isn’t associated with video games. Since gas prices are so high, we canceled our summer vacation and decided instead to buy the Wii. We aren’t serious gamers and I’ve hardly been obsessed with video games even in my childhood although the first consoles to hit India arrived a tad late for me. My brother on the other hand was a big fan and I was content on watching him play. However, the reviews for Wii have been encouraging and the fact that non-gamers enjoy it as well played a big part in succumbing to partaking in the console wars (frankly, PS3 and XBox is beyond me). And I’m not counting much on the console in helping me lose pounds which my wife tells me I need to. If nothing, then you might consider buying Wii Fit just for this reason only.
We haven’t got Wii Fit yet because frankly it was out of budget for us and we wanted to get the hang of the console first before piling on the games. I’ll be spending my evening today setting up the console, creating Miis (Wii personalized avatars), and of course playing the bundled games. If you already own Wii, which I’m sure most of you do, please feel free to drop in your recommendations for must-have games and any tips for a newbie.
by Patrix | on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm | 
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Article Tags >> exercise | fitness | Technology | video games | Wii
Come on now…. Wii? Really? Wouldn’t it be better just to get a gym membership instead?
Gawker, and you think I don’t have one already? Having a membership and going to one isn’t the same thing. Sigh! Likewise with the Wii.
Okie, I am a gamer, though the only games I play are the Need for Speed type simulators and the sports games like Madden and Tiger Woods. But I don’t like spending money on it so I usually look for bargain deals, like the one I got for a modded Xbox that can play ripped games.
So on a lark, I decided to vote on this deal that Amazon had during Thanksgiving last year and I won the chance to buy a Wii for $79 (not a typo ;) )
From my experience with the Wii, for starters, unless you bought some kinda value pack, you will get just one Wiimote and one Nun-chuck with the console. So you need another Wii-mote at least. And from experience, unless you keep it as a party game, you are bound to get bored with it really fast since the games that come with it are pretty basic and unless I am mistaken, you will run through them in a week.
If you decide to get another Wiimote, I’d rather advise you to get the Wiiplay because that way, you will get another controller plus a few more basic games.
But if you want other games, I suggest you go to your local mall where you can still get used Wii games for cheap at stores like Gamestop and EB Games. Else, instead of the Wiimote, if you buy a couple of Gamecube controllers, you can also buy used Gamecube games from the same places and play it on the Wii.
As for the Fit, since I got my Wii dirt cheap, I decided to pay for the Wii Fit last week. It’s on a truck as we speak.
Wii is a lot of fun….with kids around :D – I found myself getting bored with it when playing with adults. A kid or two just adds a whole new dimension to Wii and is absolutely fun.
Anantha, thanks for the tips. You lucky bugger! somehow I never qualify for those super saver deals on Amazon (Gold Box is my current obsession). But on the flip side, I ended up paying only $249 for the Wii at Sears online as opposed to $350+ on Amazon or Buy. And I bought Wii Play and an extra nunchuck along with the console. We’ve a GameStop store not too far from our place so I’ll go browse around sometime. Being not too serious a gamer, I might take a little longer than a week to run through the basic games.
Probably I’ll ask for Wii Fit for my birthday :)
Supremus, I’ve heard that too. Wii seems to be more of a social community gaming console. Now where do I find a kid to play it with? Might just get added on the sex offender list if I try.
Bought it at a Target 4 miles from our house after failing to find it in stock online for about a week. All I had to do was call a few T’get stores and am amazed because I had no idea it was so hard to get and yet we found it so easily. I chose not to buy the bundles (what you saw for 350 probably was) And now we love Tget even more — the Wii is mindblowing for people like me who don’t like the racing, shooting type vid games.
My husband wasn’t even interested in the Wii but is now hooked onto bowling and boxing . I like tennis also and my arms and hips were hurting after extended “matches”, need to practice on my golf next! But we both are not excited about the baseball — desi logon ke liye nahi chalegi.
Took us about 20 min to do setup, avatar creation, wifi internet connex etc. I get the feeling we will need the batt charger pack soon, read that the remote drains batteries very fast.
Can’t believe you scrimped on the Fit. How much exactly did you drop on the cruise? If you plan on working out get the Fit or atleast DDR.
Btw, speaking of Gold Box I can give you a few tips. Apparently*, from the anonymous descriptions, if you guess what the products are, you can add it to your cart and buy it when it goes on sale :)
Also if you (or anybody else here) ever decide to get a Wii Fit, go enrol your email/cellphone on wiialerts.com. And you can choose one/more websites (eg. Amazon, Toysrus etc.) and the site willalerts will alert you via email/text message as soon (the very instant it appea!) as they are available. There’s wiitracker too, but did not help me much.
*Disclaimer: I haven’t tried it.
KS, just finished unpacking and playing around with my Wii. It is awesome and perfect for as you say, for people who don’t like those shooting type video games. I was surprised at how much physical activity is involved in playing these Wii games especially Tennis and Boxing…nearly threw out my shoulder trying to knockout my opponent. I guess we might have to get the Wii Fit after all.
Anantha, thanks again for the pointers. I’m seeing Wii Fit available at some places but right now it doesn’t fit in our budget at least not for this month.
The NPR Morning Edition episode, Gaming your way to fitness talked about some pros and cons of fitness gaming.
An excercise physiologist from Ediburgh, found that