Then I will be able to buy one without $300 in extra "holiday bundle" crap.

In the interest of continuing this dialogue, I'd like to address some of these poins. What it mostly comes down to is that I still get the impression that you are judging the Wii on criteria completely removed from actually playing one.

The "resolution problem" presented by TVs is a real one for Nintendo and comes down to a simple consumer question: do we optimize for cutting edge technology, or for the technology our consumers are most likely to have? One major problem faced by the PS3 and 360 is that the more optimized they are for high resolutions, the worse they look on regular televisions. Smaller fonts, denser interfaces, and so on make the new systems gorgeous in HD, there's no denying it, but the better they look, the less readable they are on standard TVs. If you own an HDTV, and you can afford a game system worthy of such technology, it is understandable that you would want to "get the most out of it."

But HD is not being adopted in the U.S. (and even less so in Japan) at the rates everyone hoped. In some sense, the PS3 and 360 are actually ahead of their time, driving technology. That will be to their great advantage in, I don't know, anywhere from two to five years probably--so the Wii probably hasn't got the lifespan of a system like the PS2. But it's also profitable straight out the gate which puts Nintendo in a position to be researching and developing the Wii's successor well in advance of Sony or Microsoft's efforts. It's a different strategy, dictated at least in part by Nintendo's position competing with two enormous companies that can eat losses far beyond Nintendo's capacity as a games-only company. And apparently it is, for the moment at least, a winning strategy.

I agree that the name is unfortunate from a marketing perspective. But considering most places can't keep Wiis in stock for more than a few hours, any impact the name theoretically has had on demand is to this point completely moot. You don't like the name, we get it. But it turns out the people who haven't "moved on" are generally the people who need to insist that, despite its superior sales numbers and mainstream media reviews, the Wii "can't" be as good as the PS3 they bought for $2500 on eBay. The name is silly, we get it. Turns out the system is insanely fun anyway and has mass-market appeal.

However, it's not clear that many games are going to embrace the wand controller. There are several popular & established gaming genres that do not lend themselves well to a wand controller: racing/driving games, shooters, flight sims, and fighting games to name a few. Games where a handled-object are used seem to be the best & most obvious fit. However, outside of the obvious sports games (featuring tennis rackets, golf clubs, baseball bats, etc) and certain fantasy games (featuring weapon swinging, etc), the wand controller doesn't seem very applicable.

At this point you come off very strongly as having no appreciable experience with the Wii. I'll grant that racing/driving games I'm a little skeptical of on the Wii, despite Excite Truck. But shooters? Personally I'd prefer a mouse, but after using the wand in Zelda, I have no doubt that it is superior for FPS controls to a stick or pad any day (Red Steel was just a bad game, can't really judge from that one d^_^b). Flight sims and fighting games are actually two genres I think will benefit significantly from the Wiimote, to say nothing of RTS (a genre largely nonexistent on consoles), RPGs (KotOR was much better with a mouse, in my opinion), and traditional "point and click" adventure games (a popular and accessible genre that is nearly impossible with a stick or pad). Fighting games is unknown, but do keep in mind that even Smash Brothers Brawl is probably not going to utilize the wand; there's no pressure to use the motion controls where they might actually detract from gameplay. There will always be those games that just get ported and "tacked" with motion controls, but

I'm sure I can't be the only person on slashdot who reads this and thinks "well actually I thought it would." Surely I haven't just become the world's leading business analyst overnight. Following on from their strong showing with the DS, I felt a lot of people (although none of the moron^H^H^H^H^Hexperts who get paid to share their infinite wisdom) seemed to predict this as Nintendo's second coming. Perhaps some analyst company would like to pay me stupid amounts of money - I'm open to offers. I was so sure about it, I even told my retired and not particularly wealthy parents to buy Nintendo stock (and they'd never forgive me if I was wrong).

In addition, since playing the Wii at my house, my other age 40+ friends that "don't play video games" are actively in the market for a Wii.

So, yeah, the magic must be dead.

when I'm playing games alone I just want to sit down and relax, not be flailing around.