Right now the Wii is high flying adored. The launch was a huge success no matter how you slice it. People are hungry for Wii consoles and content. Seeing a Wiimote and Nunchuk at retail is like catching a glimpse of Bigfoot and Nessie partying together in their undersea Unicorn castle.

Things are looking pretty good for the Wii alright. But could it be flash in the pan? A fad? Dare I say… a novelty?

When 2007 is over and done with, will Wii still be relevant? Here’s some stuff that could totally sink this awesome console:

1. Bad Ports: If the Wii ends up with a glut of PS2, PS3, and Xbox 360 games with gesticulations tacked on, players are going to be bummed out. You and I, the gaming savvy, will know enough to avoid these lame phone-ins. But if the game’s got a remotely recognizable license attached to it, Mom and Dad Sixpack are going to walk into Wal-Mart and pick it right up. Once the family has been burned by enough bad ports, Mama will be soured on the whole system, and it will end up on a shelf collecting dust. Notice – I’m saying bad ports. I think it’s perfectly fine, and in fact cool, to bring established franchises to the Wii. They just need to be approached with respect for the platform’s strengths and weaknesses.
2. Novelty over Innovation: It’s easy to let the Wiimote go to your head. There’s so many things it can do! It’s a feast interface opportunities. But, just because it can do all this cool stuff, doesn’t necessarily mean that it should. Would Twilight Princess be any more fun if it had a laborious real-time sword fighting system? Maybe, maybe not. If you remember the first batch of DS games, they generally tried to use every one of the DS features. They played more like tech demos than games. The Wii could fall into a similar rut of games that exist purely to show off some cool thing the controller can do. (Okay, WarioWare gets a pass on this one).
3. Shallow Games: Because Wii lends itself to shorter bursts of fun, there may be a temptation to produce a string of shallow games for the console. Just to draw a distinction, shallow and simple are not the same thing. Simple is good. Wii Sports is simple. But, it’s simple and deep. The more you play, the more there is to play. You unlock new training modes, plot your progress over time, and face more challenging opponents. Shallow would be something like, “Wii Ring Toss”, a game where, for $49.99, you can throw rings at a spike. When the ring lands on the spike, you hear applause. When the ring misses, you see Satan devouring a puppy. That’s shallow, and it’s a ripoff. Like bad ports, too many shallow games could sour people on the whole Wii experience.
4. Wii Connect: The online service needs to be easy to use and reliable. I know that’s easier said than done, but it’s got to happen. Microsoft has really taken the lead in this category. Live does a great job of offering players cool stuff to do on pretty much every blade of the Live interface. The Wii Channels are a step in the right direction. But, the friend codes are unwieldy, the channels don’t talk to each other in a logical manner, and some of the interface is downright confusing. For example, if someone emails me a Mii, why doesn’t it go to the Mii Plaza? Also why do I have to go to compose an email to add a friend to my list? Why can’t I send messages or Mii’s to multiple people at once? These are little frustrations now, but once online gaming gets going on the Wii, this stuff needs to be seamless.
5. Nintendo Losing Focus: Once Wii gets rolling, I worry that Nintendo might shift focus away from great software and on to a parade of asinine add-ons. At the bottom of the wiimote is a dark portal, yearning to be filled all sorts of doo-dads, whoop-de-doos, and doohickies that will work with one to three games max. Microphones, cameras, castanets, monocles, GBA readers, you name it, they could add it. Or, they could shift focus onto DS/Wii connectivity, bullying you into buying two versions of the same game to unlock all the features. Or, they could shift gears and start selling special SD cards pre-loaded with exclusive tradable content. Now granted, some of this stuff could actually be cool, but if Nintendo’s business model shifts in this direction, the Wii will drown in its own versatility.
6. Third Party Disinterest: Nintendo is going to need to light the path for third party developers, no doubt about it. And, their 2007 lineup appears to be doing just that. But what if no one follows? Different people like different types of games. Not everyone likes Nintendo’s first party stuff. The platform needs to offer a buffet of compelling third party content if it’s going to reach the broadest audience possible, and avoid becoming a fancy toy for fanboys.

Bottom Line: Wii’s got more potential ahead of it than it could possibly know what to do with. It’s off to a great start, but the future is anything but certain. Personally, I think Nintnedo’s got the right idea this time around. But, the stakes are higher than ever this generation, and there be dragons in the wilderness of the game industry.