Nintendo has managed to pack the Wii full of features without creating an exorbitant price tag. For $250, you can snag the console (available only in white at launch, though additional colors are sure to follow at some point), Wii Sports (a compilation of games including tennis, golf, bowling, baseball, and boxing), power and A/V cables, one Wii Remote, one Nunchuk controller, and one remote sensor (for detecting the Remote’s movements). Considering that the fully featured Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles sell for $400 and $600 respectively, Nintendo has made the Wii an attractive option for gamers that don’t wish to break the bank.
Downside: One area where you’ll definitely see the price difference is in visual quality. Unlike the PS3 and the Xbox 360, the Wii will not will not support high-definition output, though the system will offer 480p progressive scan and a wide-screen mode, so it has the potential to look at least as good as a DVD on an HDTV. In addition to the diminished resolution, the Wii won’t have the graphical horsepower that you’ll find under the hood of Microsoft and Sony’s systems. The games we’ve seen so far are closer to the last generation of consoles than the current ones. In fact, the Wii’s flagship launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is being concurrently developed for the GameCube, with the controls–not the graphics–being the major difference between the versions.
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