The list of frivolous things that have continued to hold my interest since age eight is relatively brief: "The Simpsons," the Detroit Red Wings and Nintendo. That's it. Michigan State basketball (I was brainwashed), "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Home Improvement," Sega Game Gear - I've moved on from these things. But I've held on to the others and likely will for a long time, which is why it's difficult to admit that one of my nearly lifelong interests has gone astray. Nintendo, I love you, but your latest venture just isn't doing it for me.

I know sales figures and an informal poll of soccer moms shopping for birthday presents at Best Buy would suggest otherwise, but the Nintendo Wii is a failure. Sorry, but it is. Not in terms of interest or financial numbers, but the Wii has failed to deliver on its intended purpose. The Wii was supposed to be the anti-video game video game console: Graphics and buttons were out; interactive gameplay was in. The system hasn't flopped in the sense that Virtual Boy flopped - there are legitimately good, borderline-great games available for it - but the Wii sacrificed HD visuals and a consistently competent controller for one that sometimes works for certain things. Nintendo's jacked-up TV remote was supposed to revolutionize the industry, but here we are 16 months after it launched, and two things are clear: Third-party developers aren't interested in learning to develop for the hardware, and Nintendo is slowly inching away from it. Thus, I present to you the case against Nintendo Wii:

Exhibit A: Third-party support. Since Nintendo 64 launched in 1996, Nintendo has had a difficult time coaxing quality games out of third-party software manufacturers. Because producing games on cartridges wasn't economical and scared developers away, N64's software library paled in comparison to that of the original Sony PlayStation. A few years later, the Nintendo GameCube came along. With its miniature controllers and CDs, it too failed to draw in many of the titles that Xbox and PS2 did. But with the Wii, it seems things have started to change for the house that Mario built. The Wii library is still substantially smaller than Xbox 360's or PS3's, but Nintendo is finally regaining support from most third-party manufacturers. The problem: The games are not good. It's that simple.

It was clear at the Wii's launch that developing games that effectively utilized the Wii Remote was going to be difficult. "Wii Sports" was the only launch title able to truly harness Nintendo's new controller, but it was only a collection of basic mini-games. When the Wii launched, the consensus was that though it would take a little while for developers to figure out the new hardware, eventually non-Nintendo developers would learn how to use the console. Unfortunately, this has not happened. At the moment there are less than five worthwhile Wii games that were developed outside Nintendo's umbrella. "Guitar Hero III" is solid, but it came with its own hardware, doesn't offer downloadable content and doesn't even include stereo sound - and it's a music game. The "Madden" series has been half-decent, but it's still not nearly as deep as the PS3 and Xbox 360 builds. And then there's - shit, that's about it.

The issue with the other titles is that it seems developers still don't know how to use Nintendo's console. Sports games that should be using the Wii Remote to provide 1:1 gameplay are instead porting over GameCube games and swapping out the A button for a shake of the controller to make it "interactive." Shooters, racing games, action games - nothing has seemed to work that wasn't birthed by Nintendo.