20 Incredibly Important Video Games That Shaped The Industry

12. Wii Sports

Why It Is Important: Wii Sports perfectly demonstrated Nintendo's motion control technology that would go on to define an era of gaming. Back at Tokyo Gameshow 2005, Nintendo gave us a peek at what the successor to the GameCube would have to offer. We saw a trailer starring a weird little motion-sensitive remote that people used to swing a baseball bat, fish, play the drums and conduct music. Journalists and gamers alike were dubious to say the least, with many starting to think of Nintendo as that nice old relative that's just started to lose their marbles. It wasn't until Nintendo showed off the Wii and Wii Sports at E3 2006 that people finally got it. Swinging a controller and watching a tennis racket swing on-screen was mind-blowing. It was so simple and intuitive that even your Grandma could play. Well, for about 5 minutes anyway until she got bored and went back to good old Scrabble. Nintendo bundled Wii Sports with the console, which was a huge factor in its subsequent success that saw it selling over 100 million units. Love it or hate it, there's no denying Wii Sports' innovation. It proved that motion controls and gaming could work. Sony and Microsoft later followed suit with the PlayStation Move and Kinect, but they failed to capture the success of the Wii.