Nintendo Wii devotees are likely already familiar with Johnny Chung Lee as the guy who appeared one day last year on YouTube with a mind-bender of a demo on how to use the Wii remote and sensor bar to do head tracking. By placing the Wii remote at the base of a TV and attaching the sensor bar to a pair of glasses (and in conjunction with a bit of custom software), Lee made the three-dimensional images on screen respond to his position in space, appearing to float off in front of the screen. As it turns out, Lee is more than just a guy with a knack for understanding the Wii remote; he's currently a graduate Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. And he's so impressed the gaming world with his developments that EA is bringing a Wii game to market this spring with a head tracking Easter egg.

Last year, we reported on Microsoft's Surface Computing touchscreen in our Best of What's New issue. It looks like a coffee table-sized iPhone, only instead of using your fingers on the screen to scroll and zoom, you can use your fingers to grab, move, sort, and rotate any number of items you see. As for the Wii, well, everybody knows about the Wii by now—its controllers use an accelerometer and infrared sensors to figure out where and how quickly you're pointing at your television. Now imagine those two things mashed together—without any external devices.

This seems like an absolute natural: Namco Bandai just announced that it will deliver a game for Nintendo’s Wii called We Ski this spring. More importantly, the game will work with the Wii Balance Board—their forthcoming fitness-focused accessory—and should be the first such game developed outside Nintendo.

Soon after the Nintendo Wii’s release, hackers immediately began uncovering ways to use its unique motion-sensing controller to interface with other things—PCs, musical instruments, you name it. But Tom Tlalim, an Israeli-born composer who now lives in the Netherlands, may have outdone them all: His full-body, eight-piece “suit” of Wiimotes interfaces fully with custom software to turn his entire body into an electronic instrument that responds to his every motion. In his suit, Tlalim doesn’t play songs. He dances them.

Yesterday Nintendo announced that the WiiWare channel—which will offer a range of additional games, including an installment of the popular Final Fantasy, along with tools for developers to create new ones—will launch May 12. According to GameSpot, Nintendo of America says that there are already more than 100 projects in the works, and a healthy slate of those games will be ready to go on launch day. Giving a bigger pool of developers a chance to find new ways to use the Wii should prove interesting – there’s more room for creative applications.

Also, a week after the channel launch, Nintendo’s Wii Fit will go on sale.

Yes, yes, and yes. Owners of Nintendo's revolutionary new Wii system will soon be welcoming a new game to the stable, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Sure, you'll be able to play it on the PS3 and the Xbox 360, too, but why would anyone bother? This is what the Wii is made for.

Next year, players will be able to wield their controllers like a Skywalker. And you'll do so as a bad guy. Apparently, you'll serve as Darth Vader's apprentice, charged with ridding the universe of Jedi. That might not sound too appealing for those of you who don't like the idea of working for a murderous villain, but watch the trailer here, then try to tell me you're not ready to work for the Empire.—Gregory Mone