This is a game that needs no introduction, but I’mma go ahead and introduce it anyway. The original [Wii Sports](https://youtu.be/qAka9mi9kzQ) was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon back when it released in November 2006. Then-Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé fought hard to convince Nintendo to make it a free pack-in title for the Wii, something Nintendo apparently doesn’t like doing according to his book “Disrupting The Game”. The original game’s title theme is still one of the most nostalgic pieces of music Nintendo has ever composed. The five sports included (being Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Baseball, and Boxing) weren’t too deep, but they provided hours upon hours of enjoyment to both core gamers and casuals alike. I’m sure you tried to throw the bowling ball backwards to freak the crowd out, or go for the secret sonic boom strike technique. And it managed to sell a staggering 83 million copies over the course of its lifetime.
While then-Nintendo President Satoru Iwata was unsure if they should release a sequel, the advent of Wii MotionPlus justified it. And so we got [Wii Sports Resort](https://youtu.be/dUYXVwpeVhc) in 2009, which featured a whopping 12 sports in total, with Swordplay and Golf being my personal favorites. All are controlled by the newly upgraded Wii MotionPlus, which makes tracking your motions far more reliable. It was also the debut of Wuhu Island, one of the most creative and well-realized settings in any Nintendo game, which would go on to appear in several other series like Wii Fit, Mario Kart 7 and 8 Deluxe, and Smash Bros. Wii U and Ultimate. It has since sold a respectable 33 million copies and may just be the best game in the entire series. It was also one of only three notable Wii games to utilize Wii MotionPlus, the other two being Skyward Sword and Red Steel 2.
Then came [Wii Sports Club](https://youtu.be/AwGFcpGrCbw) in 2013 for the Wii U, which was a weird one. This basically took the original five sports from the first game, rendered them in HD, gave them Wii MotionPlus support, and finally added online play. This was already a death sentence for two reasons: 1) People have already played these five sports to death, and 2) this game was launching in the middle of the dead zone created by the motion control craze’s decline and the rise of smartphones and tablets. On top of all that, Nintendo decided give this game the most confusing release strategy ever. Back when it launched, Wii Sports Club only featured two sports, with the remaining three being added in the coming months. You could either rent the game for a single day for a small fee, or buy each of the sports outright for $10 dollars a pop. Confused? Yeah I don’t blame you. All of these factors together, plus some baffling changes made to sports like Boxing and Golf, ensured the game wouldn’t even break half a million copies sold.
After that, the series went into a deep hibernation for the next 9 years. And then in February 2022, Nintendo announced they would be reviving the IP for the Switch in the form of the aptly titled [Nintendo Switch Sports](https://youtu.be/HeCMoUQ-zIo). It would feature a mix of new and returning sports, now with the enhanced motion capabilities of the Switch Joy-Cons. What immediately set this installment apart from previous entries is the increased focus on online play. You can progressively unlock new cosmetics for your sportsmate avatar by playing any of the six included sports, even faster if you play online. However this effectively means you will have to have an online subscription in order to experience a large chunk of the game’s content, on top of the $50 price tag you already paid for the game itself. As for the sportsmates themselves, these new avatars were easily the most controversial thing about this game prior to release, as they seemed to sideline the Miis (who are still playable FYI) by making sure any cosmetics you unlock don’t work with them. Finally I have to talk about this game’s post launch release strategy. Switch Sports followed in the footsteps of the previous Mario sports games and Animal Crossing New Horizons with the “free updates” model, and folks including myself have gotten tired of it. Golf was a staple of the Wii Sports series up till now, but Nintendo didn’t add it into Switch Sports until 6 months later. In any case the game still managed to sell over 8.5 million copies, so at least people were interested in Wii Sports again.
by Asad_Farooqui
40 Comments
When my dad hit himself in the head trying to beat me at tennis.
Playing bowling so hard my arm hurts 2 days…
Throwing the bowling ball backwards on accident and having a laugh when the audience freaks out.
My dad and I used to clock so many hours into the dogfight game in Resort. Good times!
Being stoned and playing wii bowling by flicking the wrist
I was in a rehab facility after a car accident, and on Fridays we would play Wii Sports. It was the thing I looked forward to the most during those bad couple of months. I bought a Wii just to play it again as soon as I was done with rehab.
Getting my 80 year old grandma to play tennis with me.
*GODDAMMIT I got teary-eyed
Like I suspect a lot of people, my fondest memories of the series are from Christmas day the year the Wii came out. It’s not like I stopped playing Wii Sports immediately afterwards or anything; I had plenty of fun with it over the years. But I think the general vibes of playing it as this shiny new thing with the whole family just being excited to wave a Wiimote around is just sorta hard to top.
Nintendo Switch Sports is a great game, especially online. Ranked tennis can get pretty intense. Highly recommended!
Finally going 10/10 in Home Run Derby
Jesus vs Einstein boxing with family on Christmas day LOL
I still to this day play Wii sports Resort…the 3 point shooting contest in basketball 🏀 is beloved by all my friends including those who have PS5/XBox. It’s truly the best pure shooting simulation I’ve ever played and actually teaches you how to shoot a basketball 🏀 properly which is really saying something. I try to channel my inner Steph curry 💆♂️
On top of that the golf ⛳️ is outstanding and bowling/archery are always enjoyable…I occasionally dabble in the flight simulator/free fall because Wuhu Islsnd is gorgeous and fun to explore. I actually consider it a sleeper for best game of all time
Making a ton of miis that looked like famous people then having bowling tournaments that featured them. Like which dead rock star is best at virtual bowling? Let’s find out. I bought switch sports just for bowling but it’s not the same.
Baseball. Bring back baseball. I will even accept a new Mario Sluggers game
My fondest would be my first experience with it. Went to a gathering at hosted by some friends of the family. The Wii would have just came out but at this point I was too young and not in the internet enough to he aware of this. So all of a sudden I realized that Nintendo made a console that wasn’t the N64.
I played tennis and bowling with cousins and the grandkids of the family friends. It was such a blast and when I think of the Wii this is the first thing that comes to mind.
Beating my dad’s score (elo) in bowling, haha take that now I have the sparkly ball not you mwahahah
Getting absolutely cold cocked across the head with the wiimote by my older sister while we played baseball. It’s like a weird like ouch memory but I definitely miss being a kid and playing games with my older sister
Bowling with my cousins
>It was also only one of three notable Wii games to utilize Wii MotionPlus, the other two being Skyward Sword and Red Steel 2.
There were more than that. There were only 3 Nintendo developed games that used it (WSR, SS and Flingsmash). There were a handful of 3rd party games that used it including Red Steel 2, but also Go Vacation (in some of the sports, not all), Raving Rabbids Travel in Time, the later PGA Tour games, and some others (see list [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_that_support_Wii_MotionPlus)).
I remember getting my wii for Christmas and i went to my grandma’s for new years. I was playing Mario kart when my dad came home with a wii sports disc and one of those useless golf club extensions for the Wii remote. For a 4 year old this is the coolest thing ive ever seen and i played with him for like 2 hours afterwards. I was reminded of this when I went to the playtime records a couple months ago on my wii
***”NICE COCK!”***
I wish I could post here in the comments, but I recently bought it and played with my family for the first time, we were playing golf and my 60 years old mom, who never touched a controller in her life, managed to hit a ball at a respectable distance straight to the hole, me and my brother didn’t had a chance against her
Had a family reunion when I was like 8 and my family all took turns trying to get to pro on boxing. I vividly remember my uncle being in a tank top because he was so gassed after a while lmao
Playing with my family during a Sunday
The best of times!
Playing Bowling and Golf with my family, definitely. Exploring Wuhu Island and the surrounding area in Resort’s Island Flyover was also awesome.
I was playing tennis and went to smoke the ball so I had a nice full wide swing and rocked the back of my homies head. Then later that night since we were taking g turns on the wii, me and a different friend went upstairs to watch melee videos on YouTube and discovered wave dashing and blew our collective minds. The video we watched was called shined blind and it featured a fox main named zelgadis and his friends. One of them was germ and he was a link main and Bob money a dr mario main. We were so enamored with the tech that we all practiced all night and stopped playing with sports. One of my favorite memories. Will never forget that night. Also since then a couple of us follow competitive smash to this day.
I probably have the newest memory:
Last Monday my 2 cousins came over to my new house. I have a whole retro game room set up downstairs and they were the first people I have had over to use it. Growing up we were the best of friends. Inseperable, really. Over the last 10 years though weve all gotten married and had kids and have kind of grown apart. I didn’t know what to play first but then it hit me: Wii Sports. Bowling, in particular.
All of our Miis from 15+ years ago were all waiting there for us. It was so much freaking fun. We bowled 2 games. My oldest cousin somehow bowled 9 out of 10 perfect frames on the first game. My younger cousin and I sucked but it didnt even matter. We moved on to hot shots golf 3 on ps2 after that but Wii Sports set the tone and got us laughing and feeling like it was 2006 again. I feel like it was the spark to rekindle a dear friendship that I had missed wholeheartedly. Cant wait to do it again.
Bowled a 300 in Wii Bowling!!
Getting gutter gaurd genuines in 100 pin bowling in resort
my memory about wii sport is that i never played it even though i had a wii for years
I was visiting my parents and kept hearing some noises from the living room so I went to go check. My 60+ yr old mom was playing Wii bowling by herself. Me and my siblings have always been gamers but my parents recently got addicted to Wii sports which led them to asking for a switch for Christmas! One of us! One of us!
Baseball road trip with a few friends a month or so after finishing college. DC, Cleveland, finally Chicago. We’re back at the hotel after a Cubs game and a trip to a few bars and we break out Wii Bowling. Perfect game into the 10th and I go XX9. I yelled loud enough to wake the whole goddamn hotel. I was so mad. 30 seconds later we were all on the ground laughing our asses off.
One time I took my Wii to my grandma’s when I went to visit for a day when I was on winter break for college. Hooked it up and played some bowling. Her first try after showing her how to do everything she threw a strike. It was so much fun. I took a few videos on my crappy flip phone to show my cousins. She passed away about 2 weeks later and I am so thankful for having that day with her, plus having those videos to still hear her voice.
Playing it for the first time on Christmas Eve 2006. I had never seen or played anything like it, ever. And it was mine. I love my mom.
Trying boxing for the first time. It was an insanely fast downhill from there
My family and I used to do “family bowling night” every week. We’d order a pizza and play a few rounds, every single week, for a year. I miss those nights so much. One of those things you don’t realize how much you’ll miss them one day while you’re living it.
Playing frisbee golf with my brother. In our first round, I did really well while his throws were pretty off.
When I reached the end and the goal was right in front of me, I felt bad and wanted my brother to catch up a bit, so I threw the frisbee to the side, but then the frisbee landed on it’s side offscreen and rolled into the goal. We just started laughing.
I don’t think it was that I was better at frisbee, I think I just had some good luck with that game.
First year grad school. Right before we’d go out to our favorite bar where our buddies bar tended, my roommates and I would play a good dozen matches while we listened to the Cards game and got our shit together before heading out. Sooo many laughs and screaming. Great times…
Having to. Buy 3 sets of sports accesories as the screw on adapter locked on the first head you attach
​
Funny to think at the time a plastic baseball bat was the height of immersion now we have vr adaptive triggers haptics
Definitely bowling and just having a good time with friends. It was a game that brought people together, not just for gamers