ABSTRACT
Nothing in recent years has generated more general public interest when it comes to how people play video games than the release of Nintendo’s Wii console in November 2006. During development it was codenamed “Revolution,” and its reception as a gaming platform has been shaped by high expectations, set well before it was released, that it would offer something new in the gameplay experience. At the same time, the marketing has stressed simplicity, accessibility and a revolutionary return to the kind of simple fun long associated with Nintendo as a brand. These high expectations have all been focused on the controller for the system, the “Wiimote”: a plain white rectangular wand, shaped like a TV-remote control or a cellphone, a wireless device that maps analog movements by the player-swinging a tennis racquet or a sword or putting spin on a bowling ball-to digital movements in the game. But the overall effect of the Wii platform has involved much more than this innovative controller and other hardware. It has involved more than the software, too, whether the system software or the games that have been adapted or created for the system (so far, mostly the former). The effect of the Wii has been based on the successful production of a charged atmosphere surrounding the platform-a cultural aura-to the extent that, it has become increasingly clear, the platform is the cultural aura, or at least is inseparable from it. This chapter looks at the Wii as a culturally defined platform, examining some of the mediating connections between its hardware and its software at the crossroads of the culture, the place of the Wii’s reception.
