Holy crap, this sounds totally sweet! TIME reveals details for a WarioWare game on Wii, as well as info on Zelda: Twilight Princess gameplay, a tennis game, and the next Madden.

It’s a remarkable experience. Instead of passively playing the games, with the new controller you physically perform them. You act them out. It’s almost like theater: the fourth wall between game and player dissolves. The sense of immersion–the illusion that you, personally, are projected into the game world–is powerful. And there’s an instant party atmosphere in the room. One advantage of the new controller is that it not only is fun, it looks fun. When you play with an old-style controller, you look like a loser, a blank-eyed joystick fondler. But when you’re jumping around and shaking your hulamaker, everybody’s having a good time.

That’s a pretty awesome first impression. I think this might be my favorite part:

But the name Wii not wii-thstanding, Nintendo has grasped two important notions that have eluded its competitors. The first is, Don’t listen to your customers. The hard-core gaming community is extremely vocal–they blog a lot–but if Nintendo kept listening to them, hard-core gamers would be the only audience it ever had. “[Wii] was unimaginable for them,” Iwata says. “And because it was unimaginable, they could not say that they wanted it. If you are simply listening to requests from the customer, you can satisfy their needs, but you can never surprise them. Sony and Microsoft make daily-necessity kinds of things. They have to listen to the needs of the customers and try to comply with their requests. That kind of approach has been deeply ingrained in their minds.”

This excerpt didn’t go on to explain what the second notion was, but it’s not really important; Nintendo knows what they’re doing. I’ve been saying it since last September when they showed the Wii controller to the world at TGS. They will continue to be successful where Sony and Microsoft struggle to break even. Maybe Nintendo won’t overtake Microsoft and Sony this time around, but I know they’re going to surprise a lot of people. Games on Wii are going to be something everyone should experience. I’m just waiting for Nintendo to announce a launch price so I can finally pre-order it. Unnfortunately, most people don’t think this is one of the details to be revealed this week at E3. Still, with TIME journalists writing things like this about Wii, I can’t wait to get my hands on one 🙂

Note to self: DO NOT drink Vault with evening meal.

Granted I just watched three hours of great TV (Prison Break, 24, and Everwood) and that can always pump me up a little; still, this is ridiculous. I haven’t been this restless since the wedding and trip to Jamaica. The stupid commercials pulled me in just like the marketers intended (you know it tastes like a soda, but kicks like an energy drink). So I stopped off at the grocery store on my lunch hour to pick up some essentials and grabbed a bottle to see if it was any good. I didn’t get to it until dinner.

I’m not sure what they put in that stuff but it sure seems to have had an effect on me. It wasn’t particularly tasty or gross, so I finished a 20 oz bottle in about 30 minutes. Now, I’ve tried an energy drink or two before – I tried Red Bull a few times in college to see if it would help me stay awake in class, but it never seemed to have any affect at all and it wasn’t particularly tasty (unless it was mixed with Vodka). Needless to say this has kind of caught me off gaurd. I can’t seem to sit still and I don’t think I’ll be ready to sleep any time soon.

If it wasn’t raining outside I’d consider running around the block…but instead I’ll probably play several rounds of of Tetris DS and see if I can boost my rating at all. I think I’m hovering somewhere around 5500.