Nintendo’s Wii gaming console was first released in 2006 and is considered seventh-generation technology in console design history. The Wii was set apart from designs by rivals Sony and Microsoft when president of Nintendo Satoru Iwata directed the company to focus on novel gameplay rather than computational power. The fundamental aspect that sets it apart is this console’s controller design, which uses motion sensing designed to both recognise gestures and as a pointing device at the television screen, ground-breaking in domestic use at the time.

The system was sold with a game, Wii Sports, which showcased the ingenuity of using motion controls in an easy to gauge format. It’s simple controls got people to play through use of motions that were recognisable to how they play in real life, breaking down barriers that games with complex controls often raise. It was the system’s “killer app”, hugely expanding the game industry’s demographic reach. Not only popular with children and young people, Wii Sports and the console became popular among older people as well, the game’s simple gameplay and social elements being particularly suited to use in retirement home communities.

With Nintendo’s shift to focus on novel gameplay, core gaming communities drifted away from the company towards more powerful consoles with more complex gaming. Nintendo’s prime focus at this time instead became families and social gamers but this only expanded their reach. Within it’s 11 years of production, in different forms, Nintendo sold over 101 million Wii consoles, making it the 4th best-selling console of all time.

Nintendo’s company history goes back to the late 19th century, when they manufactured hanafuda playing cards for the Japanese market, and then moved in to creating innovative toys in the 1950s and 60s. Moving into electronic and arcade games in the late 1970s, they weathered the storm of the US videogame crash in 1983 and became an international household name in 1985 with the home Nintendo Entertainment System, in the third generation wave of consoles, which introduced the world to the Super Mario Brothers. They have remained at the forefront of videogaming technology and publishing ever since, having released seven different consoles iterations in this time.