The Nintendo Wii Controller

With each generation of home video games, Nintendo has been taking a smaller and smaller piece of the market. Rather than continue this trend Nintendo wants to change the way video games are played and creates a different kind of video game controller.

The Wii remote is intended to be as approachable as a television's remote control and to be easy and intuitive to use. The main "revolutionary" aspect of the controller is in it's motion sensing capabilities; capable of sensing hand movements as motion, gestures and even pointing, it's intended to make games natural, intuitive and most importantly, inventive.

To help make games immersive, the controller also features rumble/"click" force feedback and a small built-in speaker to allow the controller to play sound effects when performing certain moves.

The controller also features a traditional directional pad, buttons and a trigger but they are minimized to just the bare essentials for gameplay; one d-pad, one A button, one B trigger. When the controller is tipped on it's side it becomes the equivalent of an NES controller with the 1 and 2 buttons acting as the NES's A and B buttons. Rounding that out are back (-), forward (+), a home button in the center like on the XBox 360 controller, and a power button like the power button on any other remote control that simply turns the Wii on and off.

The Nunchuk which plugs into the bottom of the Wii remote is an optional attachment to add more complex, two handed, or more traditional video game control. It adds an analog stick and two trigger buttons (C and Z). In addition, it features motion sensors that can detect tilt and relative positional movement, but itself does not feature the absolute pointing/point tracking ability of the Wii remote.

Also see Wii Classic controller.