I hate surveys.  They're so misleading.

So you could garner from this "Oh, Wii owners don't play games."  Now, this might be true, but to get a more accurate survey, you would probably want a larger sample size, and you would probably want a stratified sample set, especially since Wii owners may tend to be more families and/or households with young children (like mine), and PS360 owners tend to be older children and college students.

And you have to consider the nature of Netflix streaming right now, which a lot of people might not know is currently the bee's knees for parents.  Their "Just For Kids" service, which is included in basic streaming membership, is awesome-- my kid is watching it right now as I type, and thanks to this we've been able to cancel our stupid cable service and save $60 a month.  And I haven't had to buy a stupid Barney DVD in ages.  My daughter used the Wii for this all the time until Apple TV just incorporated it like a week ago.  And the best part is that there are absolutely no ads or commercials. 

Considering the lack of worthwhile software on the system over the past year, the fact that nearly two thirds of people's time with the system is still spent playing games seems pretty good.

Oh but I thought the Wii didn't do anything but play games and had no internet capabilities and Wii owners weren't smart enough to connect online or use the device for anything besides Wii Sports or blah blah blah....

Seriously though, when you look at all three platforms, the Wii's situation doesn't appear substantially worse or better.  So, duly noted, and moving on...

When I put the disc for Skyward Sword in for the first time, DKC Returns was in the disc drive.  I got that game for Christmas LAST YEAR.  So for 2011 I literally played no retail Wii games until Zelda came out.  I did however use my Wii for a trial run of Netflix.  So I fit this pretty well.  I easily used the Wii more for watching movies than playing games this year.

But it isn't like I've lost interest in my Wii.  The Wii just had jack shit released for it this year.  I would have played it more if the release lineup wasn't so thin.

I read this as confirmation that video streaming really took off last year more than as condemnation of Wii as a gaming platform. Tons of people are using Netflix even with the difficult time that company has experienced recently.


From personal experience, my wife and daughter use the Wii for streaming more than I do for gaming in the past year. That's less a statement about my gaming interests or habits - which haven't changed - than about who has more free time around the house. We've even bought a second (used) Wii that is primarily going to be a "Netflix box".

I fit into this category, we've started using the Wii for Netflix.  Also use the Wii to read up on what's going on in the world using the News channel.  But I've also used it for games plenty, too, there may not be much that came out this year but there have been plenty of games that have gotten cheap recently that I had passed on earlier and picked up recently.

I used to fit into that category.  Up until last year the only thing hooked up to our "main" TV that could do Netflix was the Wii.  So.... we used that service quite a bit.

Later, we cancelled our demon-spawn cable provider and hooked a desktop HDMI up to our TV... it's been audio/video bliss ever since.  But that means we use Netflix through the computer's browser... not the Wii.

seems about right, Gamers bitching theres no good games most of this year until zelda came out. They have nothing better to do, so they watch netflix.

For this to be shocking news, there'd have to actually be games to play on the Wii.

And boom goes the dynamite.

I've played only Metroid Other M on my Wii this year. The only other game i want (DKCR) refuses to drop in price, so that will sit and wait. Meanwhile several PS3 games ive wanted have fallen in price and i've been playing them up since September: Infamous, Infamous 2, Portal 2 and a couple more are inbound.

So reading this doesn't surprise me. I can access iPlayer and the like from my TV which is connected via HDMI to my computer, which i can get HD streams from, so the Wii will sit idle.

~~~My Wii gaming in 2011~~~
(to the best of my memory)

======For the first time ...
Okami
Super Mario All-Stars thinger
Conduit 2 (ruined protagonist... but great gameplay)
Ghostbusters (disappointing cuz it was too similar to the movies' events)
Puzzle Kingdoms
Super Monkey Ball Step & Roll
Secret Files Tunguska (great game, AWFUL voice-acting)
Sonic Colors (heck yea!)
MCF: The Malgrave Incident (surprisingly good!!)
Mario Strikers Charged (friend told me to get it. did not like it... no I did not)
Another Code R (thanks, softmods!)
WiiWare - Horizon Riders (good! ... not great)
Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions (really good! ... too bad EoT looks like it forgot that)
DKCR

======Repeat offenders ...
Mario Kart
Brawl
HotD 2+3 Returns
HotD:O
RE: Umbrella/Darkside Chronicles
Sky Crawlers
Monster Hunter Tri

======Still on the backlog ...
Lost in Shadow
Mini Ninjas
Epic Mickey
Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo

======Still need to acquire ...
LoZ: SS (XMas 2011)
Kirby RtD (XMas 2011)
Sin + Punishment 2
Fragile Dreams
Bit.Trip Complete (XMas 2011?? c'mon, sis!)
Ivy the Kiwi
Detective Conan (softmod + Japanese friend who likes mystery games = HAI!)

3,000 out of 80 million + is a drop in the ocean. It's also percentage-based, which means that even if people play the same amount of games but are watching more Netflix, then the percentage of game play time would still go down.

I should get in on one of these surveys. If the Nintendo Channel is any indication, I play games more than the average owner. I'll skew these results back to normal!