Development of the Nintendo Wii

The first ideas of the console were develop in 2001, the concept mainly involved a innovative way to have a player interaction. By 2003, engineers and designers started to work on that concept. In 2005, on a big and well-known trade show for computers and video-games called the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Nintendo displayed the Wii console but not the controllers. The company mention there that the controllers were going to be a big surprise.
The controllers were not shown that day because even though the company expected them to be a great success, they were not finished yet. It was later on when Nintendo's president revealed the controllers. Nobody new at that time how profitable the product would be. Many people doubt it could be a success, and even more when it was expected to play mainly with just one button.

The ideas that encouraged the developers to design this type of control were the following: First they wanted to make it simple, they wanted anybody to be able to use it. Compared to the many buttons and the complexity of the XBox and PS's controllers, the new control should be the opposite. Secondly, they decided that the controls should look familiar to any member of a family. So they concluded it would look very similar to a remote control. The last of the ideas, that probably made this console the most appealing, was that the Wii developers went back on time to look for patterns on the way people played video games. After a while, they all agreed that the controls should be motion sensitive, because when people play video games they literally jump when is the character who needs to jump. Instead of pressing a button, the Wii control would recognize such intuitive reactions, becoming part of the game.