So we got a Wii last Monday.  Luckily it seems that not too many people were aware that RC Willies had Wii's and that they were closed on the Wii Launch day so would still have them the day after. :)

What do I think?  Well, I've really only played Zelda and the sports games, though I did play around with the menus as well as the online services.

The menu is slow.  Thats my first impression, they have a lost of fade in fade out effects which cause the UI to seem slow after the first few transition effects.  Ever seen a powerpoint presention right after someone has learned how to do the transition effects and they're everywhere? Thats the Wii to me.  The interface is also "soft", my impression is that of clouds.  Its probably great for children, I kinda wish there were themes you could change out to reflect different personalities.

It gives you the ability to make things called "miis" which are like user avatars for the various members of your household.  Kind of like profiles in the xbox360, the mii's can be used in things like the players in the sports games to both track scores as well as give a bit more identity in games.  I kinda like them, and Jenn really liked them.  better than just the 360 profiles IMO.

The graphics are mediocre, but then, you don't buy Nintendo for the most beautiful graphics. 

Ok, the controllers.  These are the star for the Wii, and they are awesome!  We played tennis and bowling for several hours, so much that our arms were a bit sore in ways like playing real tennis!    I'm not sure if it can work for all games, but it can definitely be used for "new" style games that previously couldn't exist.

The Wii comes with wifi out of the box and you can purchase a wired dongle.  Personally we have a gigabit network plug behind our tv so I'd much prefer the wired dongle.  Unfortunately I didn't know you needed a dongle, so don't have one yet, so we had to use our wifi.  Which is fine I suppose, but while I understand some people like wifi, I'm not one of them.  We have wifi for the laptops, if at all possible we try and use the wired network since its easier, has less latency, etc. 

The internet was a bit slow, kept telling me I needed to update before using X feature even though it was already updated, etc.  I'm not sure its ready, but it seemed like I could buy games and am considering buying super mario 64, if so, I'll post here how it plays with the new controllers, presuming I don't buy an old style controller just for the old games.

One thing I didn't like.  The wireless controllers use normal AA batteries.  Why no rechargable pack like the xbox360?  I read about a product coming out in January that will hadle rechargin the controllers, but personally I hate the idea that every 20-30 hours I'll need to switch out batteries.  This really seemed like a bad decision, and I'm not sure why they didn't go with lithium rechargables lke everyone else, or at least offer recharagable accessories or something.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the Wii.  It was a good purchase, and allows for some fun party games.  Its not for the most serious games, but its good for "relaxing" and it should be a good "training" console to get non-gamers into other things like the xbox360.