How I know the Wii will succeed

[GreenEnvy]

About 3 weeks ago, my wife and I brought our Wii over to my parents place, (forgot my sensor bar btw, so had to use candles) my mother was her usual skeptical self, but by the end of the night was having a great time bowling. My dad loved golf and tennis. When we were leaving, my father asks "so how much is this thing?"

Fast forward to this morning, my parents invite us over for dinner, and ask "can you bring that game with you?" so we ask which game, as we assume they mean of the the board games we usually bring, and they say "no, the Wii".

Anyway, my parents, who never have wanted to play any sort of video game, who's vcr is usually flashing "12:00", ask us to bring it along, which is quite amazing.

go Wii!

 

[headshot119]

Thats nice. How did the candles do by the way.

 

[GreenEnvy]

Candles were good enough for navigating the menus, but I wouldn't want to actually have to use them for any real usage. I might have been that I just had them too far apart, I had figured more distance between them might help the wiimote be even more accurate, but it might have caused more issues.

 

[Bryan_]

Haha, candles. I tried that and it worked flawlessly, like I was using the sensor bar!

 

[ARav989]

i dont understand how candles can work. wouldnt it only work if you plugged it into the wii?(but thats not really gunna happen)
Thanks in advance

 

[psyichic]

The way the wii remote and the sensor bar actually works is quite simple.

The sensor bar is nothing more then two IR(infrared aka heat) emitters. They do not actually "sense" anything or send any information back to the console itself. The Wii remote detects these two points of IR with it's own sensor then sends data back to the Wii console itself using Blue tooth. Candles work just as well since they give off plenty of IR (considering fire is pretty hot). THe sensor bar is probably the most simplistic part of the entire system seeing as it just emits non-visible light and nothing more.

 

[PotatoWedgie]

i dont understand how candles can work. wouldnt it only work if you plugged it into the wii?(but thats not really gunna happen)
Thanks in advance

Nope, basically the sensor bar doesn't actually "sense" anything. It's just two IR lights spaced a few inches apart. Then the Wii remote picks up the light and triangulates its position/orientation and sends the data back to the Wii with its Bluetooth connection.

So if you had two candles burning, that'd work as well (almost all light we can see emits some light in the IR part of the spectrum, so the Wii remote can pick it up). What's REALLY cool is pointing the Wii remote at a Christmas tree and looking at the calibration screen. Little dots in the shape of a Christmas tree

 

[ARav989]

what other kinds of things give off infrared light. that would work with the wii?

 

[ottoman]

anything that gives off heat/light.

 

[sagema]

Freaking awesome. The only game system in history that can work with candles!

 

[ottoman]

my parents also love the wii, my dad espeacially he loves tennis. im taking my wii to my grandparents tommorow, im pretty sure they will love it. my aunt and uncle said they want to buy it. they will also be trying it tommorow.

Im sure they wont be dissapointed!

 

[WolfpacSnakepit]

My Uncle and Auntie recently bought one... they are in their late 40's. My Uncle has had two heartattacks in the last 18 months due to bad health and the only physical exercise outside of walking I have ever seen him do is play bowling on the Wii. One night I went over there with my cousin and they kicked my ass at bowling, embarassing! haha