Wii Sports consists of five separate sports games—tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing—accessed from the main menu.[11][12] The games use the motion sensor capabilities of the Wii Remote to control the player's dominant arm and/or the appropriate sports equipment it wields. Boxing utilizes both Wii Remote and Nunchuk gestures to control both of the player's arms. The player moves the remote in a similar manner to how the separate games are played in real life; for example, holding and swinging the Wii Remote like a golf club, baseball bat, tennis racket or bowling ball.[1] Some aspects of the gameplay are computer controlled. In tennis, player movement is controlled by the Wii, while the swinging of the racket is controlled by the player. Baseball consists of batting and pitching, with all of the fielding and baserunning handled by the computer.[12] Due to their turn-based nature, golf and bowling support hotseat multiplayer and can be played with just one Wii Remote that can be shared among players.[13]
Two people Wii boxing; the Wii Remote and Nunchuk are used here to control punches.
The in-game characters are taken from the Wii's Mii Channel, which allows the user to create a Mii (a customized avatar) that can be imported into games that support the feature. Wii Sports is the first Wii title to use this feature.[11] Miis saved on the Wii will appear in the crowd during bowling games and as members of human-controlled teams in baseball. The non-player characters in the game were also created using the Mii Channel toolset. Miis created on one Wii can be transferred onto the internal memory of a Wii Remote for use on another Wii with different save data.[14]
After a game, a player is awarded or penalized skill points based on performance relative to the computer's skill level, though some games do not calculate points during multiplayer sessions. The game keeps track of these points by charting them on a graph, as well as increasing the size of the crowd in Tennis and Boxing single-player modes. After obtaining 1000 skill points in a sport, a player is awarded "pro" level, along with a cosmetic feature for their Mii in Bowling and Boxing. A Mii newly turned pro will receive a message on the Wii Message Board notifying them. Wii Sports also features a fitness test that calculates a player's fitness age (ranging from 20 to 80 years old, 20 being the best possible). The test gauges the player's performance in three randomly chosen challenges in each test from the training mode that have been played at least once, and can only be taken once a day per Mii. Calculating the fitness age takes into account a player's balance, speed, and stamina. Fitness age results are graphed over one, two, or three months, with daily results posted on the Wii Message Board. The challenges from the fitness test are taken from another mode in Wii Sports, the training mode. Training mode allows players to practice three challenges for each sport. In these challenges, players can earn medals by reaching certain scores. Medals range from bronze to platinum, bronze being the easiest, and platinum being the hardest.[14][15]
Development[edit]
Katsuya Eguchi, who managed Software Development Group 2 at Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, produced Wii Sports.[16] With the Wii, Nintendo desired to reach people who had not played video games before. To do this they needed software that allowed both long time and first time players to interact together in a fun way.[17] Nintendo also wanted players to use the system daily and intended Wii Sports to be the console's flagship title to help accomplish this.[18] Wii Sports was designed as a simple introductory line meant to offer something for both gamers and non-gamers.[19] Sports were chosen as the theme because of the widespread familiarity with them. Rather than feature professional athletes or have realistic graphics, the game was designed to be simple so that anyone could play. Gameplay like running towards a ball in tennis was excluded to maintain simplicity.[16] At one point in development, Super Mario characters were used, but were removed because of feedback from players who preferred Miis.[20] The game supports a 16:9 widescreen ratio and progressive scan, runs at 60 frames per second,[11] and makes use of the Wii Remote's accelerometer to interpret the player's motion.[21] Motion-sensing actions, like pitching and hitting, were prioritized to make them as realistic as possible.[20] Because Nintendo did not expect players to purchase the Wii solely to play Wii Sports, they bundled the game with the console; Nintendo believed players would be more likely to play Wii Sports through this distribution method. They also felt players that enjoyed the game would increase its popularity by word of mouth.[22]
Satoru Iwata at Nintendo's 2006 E3 press conference
Before the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) Media and Business Summit of 2006, the first sport in the game was announced as Wii Sports: Tennis. It was later announced, at Nintendo's press conference prior to E3 2006, it would be part of a sports package.[21] Satoru Iwata introduced this package as Wii Sports, and stated it would include tennis, golf, and baseball. The game was featured as both a video demonstration and an on-stage playable demo. The demo featured Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime in a doubles tennis match against Shigeru Miyamoto and Scott Dyer, a contest winner.[17] The other sports titles were on display at E3 and shared a similar naming convention to the tennis game such as, Wii Sports: Baseball, Wii Sports: Golf, and Wii Sports: Airplane.[23] At the time, baseball only featured a batting simulation.[24] The airplane title was similar to Pilotwings and required the player to maneuver an airplane through rings within a time frame.[23] It was not included in the final game, but was later incorporated into Wii Sports Resort.[25] At the Nintendo World event on September 14, 2006, Reggie Fils-Aime announced that Wii Sports would be included free with the Wii. The bowling and boxing titles were also introduced.
