I’ve been following news reports about the new Nintendo Wii console. In its first week on sale, the Wii has sold over 600,000 units, and roughly 3/4 of all Wii buyers have purchased the Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess game to go with it (over 454,000 sold). Even though Nintendo kicked up production in the summer to have a lot of units available for this holiday season, my guess is that there will still be shortages through the beginning of next year. This is turning out to be the must-have game system for the holidays. Sony’s PS3 didn’t fare so well–a hardware shortage, coupled with a very high price, leaves it in a distant second place.

Initial impressions for this new game system have been impressive. Most who have played it so far have raved about how well the game is controlled with the Wii’s wireless remote. (In the more physical games, some users have even broken into a sweat–something few existing games are able to do!) It seems that it takes a brief amount of time to become used to the new controller, but after that, game play is very natural. Rather than go for the bleeding edge graphics and technology, Nintendo seems to have gone after the non-gamers with this new system, while also giving experienced gamers something new to work with. The new game control system here converts your body movements into movements on the screen, which is something that even non-gamers are quick to pick up on. Remember, Nintendo did the same with the portable DS system–no other portable system made use of two LCD screens, one of which is a touchpad, like Nintendo did, and the result is a series of unique new games based on it.

Nintendo finally addressed the backward-compatibility issue as well–using a wireless internet connection, you can download older NES, SNES, N64, Sega Genesis and Turbo-Grafx games from what amounts to an online store operated by Nintendo. These Virtual Console games run in a software emulator inside the Wii, and a lot of familiar Nintendo titles will be available in the coming months, as well as a Wii version of the Opera web browser. In addition, GameCube games also play on the Wii, so you can put away those stacks of outdated gaming consoles if you wish.

I don’t know if the Wii will put Nintendo back on top of the video gaming heap, but the Wii certainly makes enough noise on its own to stay in the running as an important gaming platform. And since it is the lowest price of all the new-generation gaming consoles, you can bet Nintendo will have their hands full keeping this in production and on store shelves during the coming weeks. I look forward to getting one in the coming months!