Video game consoles have become ubiquitous in the modern home. In fact, these days it is not unheard of for a household have more than one console from the same generation. The "seventh-generation" of gaming consoles has offered three major stars: Microsoft's Xbox360, Sony's PlayStation 3, and the market leader, Nintendo's Wii. Cumulative shipments of Wii hardware now exceed 67 million, along with nearly 510 million software units.

Nintendo has out-sold the competition, plus they've brought console gaming to a larger audience than ever before. Nintendo's more affordably priced Wii has made it accessible to a larger market, but the real success with the console has been the revolutionary impact of the Wii's control interface on the player's in-game experience.

The immersive experience of a video game in 2010 provides is a multimedia extravaganza, with hi-resolution graphics, thundering surround sound, action, drama, plot-twists, and blockbuster budgets that rival Hollywood heavy-hitters. Nintendo has turned a profit at every step of its triumphant march to the head of the class, while its competitors are left scratching their heads as to why the Wii has captured the imaginations of millions of families.

Most experts in the gaming press have written at length about the pro's and con's of the Wii Remote's intuitive motion control, which provides a very natural interaction with games through the use of infrared sensors and accelerometers to track arm motion. Microsoft and Sony have invested millions of dollar developing motion controls for their own consoles in response to the Wii's success, with mixed initial results.

However, the competition seems to have missed the greatest revolutionary breakthrough the Wii has introduced into the homes of tens of millions of gamers, the unsung Wii Nunchuk.

In 2005 the Nunchuk was unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show as the first controller attachment for the Wii-mote. It has similar motion-sensing technology to the Wii-mote though the use of an accelerometer, in addition to an analog stick and two shoulder buttons. A large number of Nintendo's first and third party titles require the Nunchuk to control their biggest selling games.

Consumers have responded with their wallets, in the United States the Nunchuk was the best selling piece video game hardware in January 2008, when it sold 375,000 units in just one month.

The Nunchuk expands the Wii-mote to accommodate the larger number of inputs required for the more complex control schemes demanded by the modern designs of the video game industry. The earliest popular video games, usually found in arcades, were coin operated and often had one simple joystick and perhaps one action button. For example, Nintendo's flagship character Mario's first appearance was in the arcade hit Donkey Kong in 1981 and sported one joystick and one button for jumping.

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