A few weeks back, we had a heck of a storm here in Seattle. It hit hard and fast, and knocked power out for days (4 in my case). Even though we don't live near a body of water, through a series of unfortunate events, the whole first floor of my house was flooded. With the lack of electricity mixed in, it made for a nasty situation. Net-net, as part of the losses, my media room was trashed. I lost my Xbox, Xbox 360, standing front speakers, center channel speakers, along with all of the furniture.  (It is a truly sad thing to tip over an Xbox and see water pour out of it)

Because of the holidays and the number of folks affected by the storm, my first floor likely won't be done over until February.  This presented an interesting challenge - I received 2 new Xbox 360 games for Christmas, Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War.  These are truly great games that deserve to be played in HD and in 5.1 surround sound. My TV (62" HD) is just too big to put in the upstairs living room, so I decided to wait to play both of these great games until the downstairs is done over.

I still wanted to play *something*, so I started looking around. I was at BestBuy just before Christmas, and there was a stack of Playstation 3s there, but I wasn't interested. In addition to my loss of HD, the cost was fairly high, and only one of the games looked remotely interesting (Resistance: Fall of Man). 

I decided I wanted a Wii. As did, apparently, most people in North America. Sold out everywhere, I kept an eye out. I leanred the inside info (i.e. BestBuy only puts them on the floor on Sunday, etc.).  I wrote .NET applications to query the Amazon page for the Wii to determine when the page changed from out of stock to in stock so I could place my order. All without success. During all of this, I was reading stories about how great people thought the Wii was, stories of people trading their $600 PS3s for the $250 Wiis on Craigs List and considering it a fair trade. I found a site that said that Best Buy would have them on the 31st.  The challenge? I'd likely have to get there early, before the store opened to guarantee I'd get one.  This was new years eve, and my wife and I were heading in town - hotel and part at the experience music project by the space needle - getting up at 4am and then trying to party until 3am, was probably a bad idea.

Fortunately, I checked my mail yesterday.  A colleague sent a note that Fred Meyer, sort of grocery store / k-mart type store hybrid owned by Krogers, got a shipment in near the Microsoft campus. I assumed that since it was on a distribution list, it would have been sold out and didn't bother.  The next morning, I saw another post that someone had picked one up at 5pm. Hmmm.. I went to the Fred Meyer web page, found all the stores near me and the last store on the list had one. Literally, one.

Two minutes later, I'm dressed and punching the address into my nav system. The store was 20 minutes away, at about 5 minutes out I called. Was it still there? It was. Just then, my nav system was less than precise and I miss a turn. Another 5 minutes added. 

I get there, walk to the electronics department. The woman looks at me, unshaven, quickly dressed, looking hobo-esque - and says 'Let me guess, you're here for the Wii." The one was still in stock. I snapped it up and brought it home.

So what can I say about the Wii? Wow. It's really *fun*.  Don't get me wrong, I love my Xbox 360 and the Wii - with a meager 480p - is not going to beat it out on graphics. With it's Dolby II, it also won't match the 360 on immersive audio. But it's fun.

For those who don't know about it, the controllers actually track motion, so you're not just working a joystick or a thumbpad.  Tonight, I played baseball on the wii, and I held the controller like a bat and swang like I was in Fenway Park.  I boxed, and the onscreen character knew when I was blocking, when I was weaving right, when I moved my right hand for a jab.  I bowled, moving my arm like I would have if I was at a real bowling alley. I looked ridiculous - if I wasn't sure, my wife let me know. When she played, she looked ridiculous.  We both knew it, and we didn't care, this thing was fun.

There are lots of small nuances that were surprising (in a positive way) - for example, in bowling, if the control was twisted (in 3d space) just a bit, it applied spin to the ball. Moving your arm faster when pitching in baseball, resulting in the ball being thrown faster (I was at 94mph). Nintendo has done a really fantastic job.

The interesting thing, is that I don't see this as a competitor to the 360, but instead see it as a complement. When I want immersive gameplay with HD and 5.1 audio, I go to the 360. If I want to play online with groups of people from all over the world, it's the 360.  But if I want to play with a bunch of people who are in my living room, I'll go for the Wii. The controls are simple, the movements are intuitive - as they reflect what you're familiar with in real life, so everyone from my hardcore gamer friends to my mom can pick up the wii and have some fun.

If you happen across one, I'd definately recommend picking one up.