With flailing arms and short quick jabs, avid gamers are embracing Nintendo's newest video-game console.
Although the Wii, released Nov. 19, is trailing behind market-leader Sony's Playstation 3 in terms of sales, it has still been highly sought after by Penn students.
Wharton junior Mrinal Todi, who attended the launch of the Wii at the Toys 'R' Us store in Times Square, said the line for the console stretched around the block.
"I waited in line for three hours at 5:30 in the morning," Todi said. "It was a lot of fun."
Penn students seem particularly excited about the innovations central to the new console.
The Wii's biggest selling point is its new controller design. The controller, dubbed the 'Wiimote,' is shaped like a television remote control, has far fewer buttons than the standard game controller and is motion sensitive in three dimensions.
For a tennis game, gamers swing the controller like a tennis racket; for boxing, they deliver a series of jabs and upper-cuts before bringing their hands back up to protect themselves.
And this sort of gameplay may have a broader appeal.
Statistics graduate student and Harrison House Graduate Advisor Alexander Braunstein reported waking up at 4 a.m. on launch day to buy a Wii and playing it with his family.
"Not only did my mother, who has never played a video game in her life before this, enjoy playing Wii," he said, "but so did my 75-year-old grandmother and my three-year-old niece."
Braunstein added that they played Wii Sports.
But while Wii Sports may be fun for non-gamers, grizzled veterans want something more.
Wii Sports "is more for casual people," Todi said, "but then you have Zelda, which takes forever."
Todi has logged over 24 hours playing the game and is not even half done, he said. Todi is now stuck in an Ice Dungeon searching for one of the four pieces of the Mirror of Twilight.
Correction: This story incorrectly states that the Wii is trailing the Playstation 3 in sales. In fact, the Wii is far outselling the Playstation 3. Sony is market leader based on strong sales of its Playstation 2 console.
