Nintendo’s ‘Revolution’-ary Game Console

written by Z.B. • April 28, 2009 Leave a Comment 

We all know what the Wii is… it’s the hottest console out there and is pretty much hard to find in stores. It’s fun, it has great games, and it even combines exercise and uses your entire body to play some of those games. But how much do we really know about it? Like, when was it made, where did it come from, and how long did it take for it to get to the U.S.?

The Nintendo Wii came out in 2004, but was being created back in the year 2000. It was out in Japan first, and finally released in the United States in 2006. When it did, it was in high demand.

Some people paid thousands of dollars to get it on eBay because they didn’t stay in stock at stores very long. Target, Best Buy, Gamestop, Toys ‘R Us, etc. all had a hard time keeping it on the stores shelves. Yeah, you could get it for regular price at Wal-Mart, but good luck finding one. That’s why people would pay a lot of money to get it on eBay. Plus you had to get in line early in the morning whenever a store did get some in stock.

Believe it or not, it was very hard to get the Wii to where it is today. People had doubts about if it would would sell or not. Nintendo had a lot of things to think about before they released it to the public. They wanted to make sure that all of the little details were figured out, they wanted for it to be cool and have a unique shape, they wanted it to be affordable for the average family. Of course, all of these things were worked out in the end.

The first week the Wii came out? It sold over 340,000 consoles!

Here’s an interesting fact for you, that not many people know. Did you know that the Wii was going to be originally called the “Nintendo Revolution”? For whatever reason, Nintendo decided to get rid of that idea and call it the “Wii.”

You can probably say that Nintendo started a revolution in the gaming world with the release of the Wii console!

by Zyhir Brown, 6th grade
Associate Editor / THE LION LEDGER