Hello, Nintendo!

Hot on the heels of Sony's disastrous PlayStation 3 news yesterday, Nintendo has just delivered the details of their Wii at E3. Engadget has a real-time summary (with pictures) for your perusal.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: despite the critics who have been skeptical of the Wii's motion-sensing controller, it looks like a paradigm-breaking innovation (in the truest sense of the term) that will push the boundaries of video gaming. Hearing about how Mr. Miyamoto shoots arrows, throws grappling hooks, lob tennis balls, drives trucks, and slash swords with the controller is enough to make me line up for a turn. And since the controller includes an embedded speaker to generate game-related sounds, you know there's going to be a killer Star Wars lightsaber-battle game coming soon...

Sure, the graphics may not be bleeding-edge state-of-the-art, but I suspect most folks won't care -- current computer graphics are already photorealistic enough to satisfy all but hardcore gamers, and no amount of graphical wizardry will satisfy the masses unless the games are fun to play.

Man, I'm seriously going to be angling to get one of those. If Nintendo keeps its promised price to under $250, I'll gladly overlook the goofy-sounding name...