Up until 2005 Nintendo were seeing a gradual decline in sales of each generation of new hardware, the company were now facing its stiffest competition in the Xbox 360 and PS3, and though the Gamecube did boast a 600-strong library of games and proved itself more technically capable than the PS2, it was still unable to get close to the same levels of popularity and sales.
Then at E3 that year, Nintendo revealed the Wii, a home console that introduced motion controls as standard, the Wii Remote, the system’s primary controller that would recognise movement and gestures, and Wii Sports, to be bundled with the console, this game included 5 sports simulations playable with multiple players, and seemingly very easy to just pick up and play.
It released in December of 2006 and broke sales records worldwide, there were stock shortages throughout 2007, and it was even outselling the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined, everyone was buying the Wii, with its ease of use and family friendly selection of party games, it continued to sell massive numbers for years until starting to drop off in 2011, having reached nearly 100 million sold and being Nintendo’s best-selling home console ever.
Whilst riding high on that success, Nintendo announced in April 2011 that they had been working on the Wii’s successor, and in June they unveiled the Wii U, the successor to the Wii, an HD console which whilst able to play all previous Wii games, was also able to show off titles comparable to the already established Xbox and Playstation systems, but with the benefit of a 6.2inch touchscreen built into the controller, motion controls, and much more.