At long last… The Nintendo Wii.

Thanks to the efforts of and her husband, Tasha and I are the proud owners of a new Nintendo Wii.

We set it up and got a few hours of play in before our family get-together for Mother’s Day, and let me tell you it is excellent. After we got back from the party we decided to try the other games available in Wii Sports… Bowling and Tennis are excellent.

I enjoyed the Fitness Training for the rest of the sports, however I’m all thumbs at the Golf game so far. I intentionally avoided starting The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for fear of not making it to work tomorrow.

When I heard about the concept of the Nintendo Wii (then code-named Revolution), I thought that it was either going to be a spectacular success or a spectacular failure. After only a few hours of play I recognize that special happiness that I’ve not felt since the days of Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. Nintendo has taken the focus of gaming, which recently has been more of a graphics arms-race, and shifted it back to what gaming should have been all about from the start: having fun.

That’s what the Wii is. It’s fun.

Fun is waving a controller around to make a cartoon version of yourself ride a cow down a country road. Fun is wondering if the neighbors think you’re crazy as you and your wife both swing the controllers around to play air Tennis. The best part is that we haven’t even gotten into the “party” games yet.

For those of you hungry to get a Wii for yourselves, be patient. Don’t give into the lure of instant gratification and get an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 (both of which cost 2-3 times more than the Wii). You won’t be sorry, the wait is worth it.