I'm glad to hear of this strap thing isn't just bull (well, not glad for your ceiling, but you know). I think I'll go fill out that replacement form. I was given two new Wiimotes for Christmas, and they both have the old strap.

I have a question for Wii Athletes out there: how the hell does the boxing work? I can't for the life of me figure out how to box correctly. It's incredibly unresponsive, and only rarely seems to do what I'm actually doing. I certainly can't figure out how to hit the side of my opponent (it just seems to do that randomly). It's really frustrating. I can dodge and block just fine, but when I try to hit, it seems to detect my movements about half the time.

Ok, I picked up Zelda and Raving Rabids today. Woo!

Now I just need a fricken console to play them on. I went to 5 stores this AM and all were sold out. I wish I had known Best Buy was still opening early as I may have had a shot if I got there before 9am. I've got a plan formulated for next week though - I just hope the stores receive some stock. Wiimotes and Nunchakas are also not available anywhere from what I have seen. Plenty of Classic controllers in stock.

Best Buy and Toys R Us carry the games at full MSRP of $59 and change here in Canada while Walmart's prices run from $40 to $59 for the same titles (Rampage and other lame titles are the cheapest).

Anyone know of any site listing upcoming Wii games with some semi-detailed info and perhaps screen shots?

The forum thread below collects a number of images in a small list:

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25249462&page=0

Some titles there I hadn't seen images of before. While there are some titles that should be quite good (or at least look like must-try) there are also a lot of real stinkers. A number of the titles already out have been universally panned - most of which didn't interest me anyway.

I'm already on the hunt for games in the vein of Zelda. Adventure/RPG titles with some type of action component. Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Elder Scrolls, etc..

Super Mario Galaxy

If Mario 64 put gamers into the third dimension, it seems like Mario Galaxy is putting us into a "fourth dimension". Soaring from planet to planet, each with their own gravity, making even the Wiimote seem too "two dimensional" of a controler for the task.

What amazes me, though, are children's ability to handle these complex controls. I was horrible with the N64 analog stick until now, 6 years later (though I didn't get any significant play time in until now). My preference for precision "digital control" (eschewing mice for keyboard shortcuts) makes me nervous of the Wiimote. Though I bet "kids these days" will have no problem, just like N64.

But yes, I'm not going to bother looking for a Wii for at least two more weeks.

Just as I started to get the hang of all the starter controls in Zelda (including the various sword attacks) my brother tells me you get even more special attacks later on. Oh boy.

Played a few of trials in Rayman today which were pretty fun. Even my girlfriend who initially dismissed the game as "stupid" got hooked in the one where you slam the outhouse doors shut.

Tomorrow begins my quest to find a unit for myself. My brother located one yesterday that had just been traded at an EB-Games, but the people at the store wouldn't sell it because they said they had to check with head office to find out how much to sell it for (since it was no longer "new") Ugh.

On finding a Wii, I wonder if those Wii Finder sites are still working. My brief search didn't turn up any.

But what are the rumor sites that nicely predicted the 12/17/06 stockpiling? Maybe those sites know when the next stockpile release date will be so we can all camp out for one. I'd camp out if I knew I'd picked the right night.

Man, it's too bad those Wiis are so rare.

I was at Target buying a light bulb last night, and they were selling a PS3 right off the shelf, with one more left in the glass case. Should I have bought it just to ebay it for a profit?

Don't bother with the ebay, I'm now seeing places that have PS3s in stock, but no Wiis though The bottom has dropped out of that market.

After figuring sales tax, shipping, and eBay costs in, not many people had a very profitable sale of the PS3s after about a week of them being out. There was a huge rise in people trying to sell on eBay compared to the PS2s, but not a noticeable rise of wallet burning holes in pants people to make it work.

Ah, good thing I didn't act on that impulse then. Strange, because I'd heard that Sony was going to be shipping very few units, and there would be a shortage. I was under the impression that the PS3 was a) likely to be the more popular console, and b) shipped fewer units at rollout than the Wii. Ah well, I guess Nintendo's finally hit the right target with the Wii. I'm happy for them, they really deserve the popularity, they make great products.

There are likely only about 1/3 or less PS3 units out than Wii. But every store I go to looking for a Wii has at least 1 (if not 3) PS3 60GB models sitting on a shelf.

Their price is one of the biggest factors I'm guessing. The Wii's control mechanics and fun party games (and lower price) have also made it the must-have console this season. On Ebay it's still fetching between $350 and $650 US daily.

I went out looking for them today and got to ToyRUs just after the delivery truck (perfect timing) - but they received no units. A friend called me to let me know EB Games received stock today but by the time I got to the closest one they were all sold out. Have to wait till next week to try those chains again. I will probably try WalMart tomorrow and I'd like to try Best Buy on Friday, but I'm not sure if they're doing their normal 'hold until Friday" this week.

I just think it's nice to see fun and affordability beating out eye candy and power. This is probably a good thing for the game consumer, as it might drive game companies to put more emphasis on the fun factor.

There's plenty of Eye Candy on the Wii as well. It's no slouch in that department. The difference between the NVIDIA chip in the PS3 and ATI chips in the Wii and 360 will not be evident in some games. At low SD resolutions (720x480) all the chips should manage full frame rate with a lot of 3D "wow"

Things you will notice on the more powerful chips in the PS3 and 360 will be higher resolutions (which require an HD set to use) and pixel-based filtering (anisotropic filtering is probably what one would notice right away). Per-pixel shading may also be easy to spot in some games, but it really depends how and where it's used for it to make a big difference. Model/object detail in some games is evident but in many it's easily lost on the majority of players. Obviously the faster chips can handle more tris/polys, but there's no guarantee a game publisher will even use different models for the various ports of their games.

At this time I can't say I'm overjoyed at the title availability for the Wii. Zelda is head and shoulders better than anything else on the platform right now. Easily 10-100x better than the other games. I'm hoping for more titles in that league sooner rather than later. Nintendo will need it to keep the console sales strong in the long run.

Game quality is very subjective, though. Though I've not played the new Zelda, I always found the older ones to be dreadfully boring. And I'm not a tweak player by any means. It always seemed to me to hit at that dead spot between action game and adventure game, where none of the positives of either side existed.

That doesn't mean that I think you shouldn't like it, but just the notion that a Zelda game is far better than any other game on the system tells me that either all the games are dreadful or that you and I don't share tastes, so there's no telling what other people might find compelling, and, therefore, your assessment of the current slew of games isn't necessarily relevant.

I agree that the current offering of games isn't that great. It seems from reading reviews that there's Zelda, party games, sports games, and then a bunch of other so-so stuff. It does sound like the sports games and party games really shine with the new remote, but since I'm not really into sports games that doesn't do much for me.

Fortunatly, I've not really got much time for gaming, so as long as there's something great released every once in a while I'll be good. Zelda will hold my attention for a while, and the new Mario is supposed to be good as well. I hope that they make a good shooter at some point, as it sounds like they haven't really gotten that right even though you'd think the new control system would be perfect for it.

Nintendo has done a good job in the "fun" department in the past, and it seems the capabilities of the system should carry this focus foward. Also, at this price point it won't be hard to feel like I'm getting full value

Zelda is pretty damn fun but there are defintely a couple of other cool games out. Excite Truck is a lot of fun. I rented it and it seemed really simple at first but there are a ton of little tricks that you can master which make it really fun.

Also, they are starting to put out some decent Virtual Console games. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is on there now and so is a Castlevania, which I've always loved. Apparantly new games are released on Mondays.

If anyone is looking for awesome 4-player action, I HIGHLY recommend downloading Bomberman. Man o man that game is insanely fun.

Gotcha. Well, there's definitely different tastes. So it's possible that there's another game on the system that you'd like much more than Zelda. I'm reasonably certain that there's not another game on the Wii that's as enormous or deep* as Zelda, but there might be ones you like more.

*Wii Sports, as I explain to anyone who tries it, is as deep as a puddle...or perhaps wet pavement. But that doesn't mean it isn't insanely fun. Excite Truck isn't very deep either. Race, do tricks, score stars, unlock courses and trucks. That's about it. But it's also very fun, although to me, it seems extremely hard. I don't know why. I've gotten the S class (the highest one) on all but one course in "Excite" mode, but I still find it very difficult for some reason. Maybe because it's so frenetic.

I understand what you mean by depth, and I'll agree that Zelda is deep, and also that, on paper, that that is something that I'd love, but not in the way I want it to be, which may be why I don't like it. Playing Zelda requires you to do a large variety of things, from trading to fighting to puzzle-solving, etc. But, from my perspective, it doesn't do any of them well. I think that that (not to discount the import of the fuckwads you always find there) is also why I despise MMORPGs.

In fact, it may be that the closer that something comes to what you want while still falling short, the more you dislike it. I've been playing golf on the PSP, and I find that putts I miss by a few inches piss me off a lot more than the ones I miss by yards.

Bitt, I've never played a Zelda all the way through. I've not owned any console ever, just PC's of one sort or another (Commodore 64, Amiga, Windows boxes, etc..)

I like straight up adventure and have also liked many action-oriented games. I think Zelda does blend those two genres very well and the new game better than any before it. I've watched my little brother play countless hours of various Zelda games and once I watched the first few minutes of the Twilight I knew this one I'd have to play myself.

I think Metroid should be a good action game with some logic involved. I've never been a big fan of the Mario games unfortunately, so I'm glad Zelda was the launch title and not Mario Galaxy. I thought both new titles were coming out in March, not fall. Best Buy Canada already has them listed online - expected March 30th.

So.... I bit the bullet, paid an extra $100 Canadian, but now I have a Wii in my hands. I just couldn't wait till next week for another crazy hop from store to store trying to catch the delivery trucks (today's truck at the local TRU didn't have any consoles).

I'll hook it up tomorrow and continue the Zelda save game I made at my brother's on Monday. Tonight I'm parking it for a couple of hours to watch a movie. Though I may just try hooking up the Wii when my GF goes to bed...

Anyone else notice on-screen pointer jerkiness after applying the online update (version 2.0u)?

My console is brand new (just shipped 1/1/07) and when I was first setting it up the pointer was silky smooth. In fact I was surprised because it was smoother than my brother's this past weekend.

After setting up the net connection it grabbed an automatic update and now the movement is jerky and changing the "sensitivity" has no effect for the issue. Basically if I move the pointer back and forth or up and down in an empty space it will stutter even though I'm moving my hand very slowly and smoothly. At times you can almost see two pointers on the screen at once (like the hand is bouncing quickly between two places).

The difference between what I'm seeing now and when I first started up the console is night and day.

Is there a way to do a factory reset?