alt Hacker NewsThe Wii was truly the peak of gaming consoles.
Games still came on disk so there wasn’t the madness of endless buggy updates (disks had one opportunity to be bug free so quality was at a higher standard) and internet connectivity was not guaranteed, so there was no way for micro transactions.
However, internet connectivity was available, so things like optional online play were still possible, as well as some basic user generated content.
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> The Wii was truly the peak of gaming consoles.
everyone says that about their childhood :)
The motion controls make it age really poorly imo (motion controls aren't bad, but forced motion controls to do anything is)
Dreamcast came with a modem and an optional Ethernet adapter 8 years earlier. The GD-ROM was too clever by half. But perhaps it was the prototype of peak game consoles. I have a soft spot because the home brew scene on that started a full quarter century ago.
For me it's the (New) 3DS. It's about the peak for handheld gaming. It can run GB, GBC, NES, SNES very well, GBA can run natively and obviously DS/3DS. You can run pretty much any Zelda game up to the GameCube on it with the official ports of Ocarina/Majora. The emulation community also has some promising demos of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but who knows about that. I have a Switch and it's frustrating seeing games that Nintendo haven't released for it (like WW and Pokopia), but maybe after a decade I'll get a Switch 2 OLED whenever that comes out.
not every console stays connected to my tv... and wii stayed. wii sports is still fun and get everyone moving during a rainy day which is quite an achievement all by itself
The Wii was the first era where game discs came with console firmware updates that were silently installed and could lock you out owning your device.
> so quality was at a higher standard
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I don't disagree, but the wii remote market was/is the absolute worst console device market.
Wouldn’t this criteria make PS2 and Xbox “peak gaming” also? I remember playing CoD online on PS2 and many praising Xbox for its online features.
Once PS3 and Xbox 360 came in picture, things changed slightly since they relied more heavily on their network services… albeit, PSN back then was free for online gameplay. These were on the same generation as Wii, but Wii was a winner for casual playing.