John Falcone at C|Net did an excellent article on some must-have accessories for the Wii. C|Net never lets the readers down with their unbiased opinions about products and services, and this article was no exception.

To paraphrase John, the eight must-have accessories for Wii:
Extra Wiimotes and Nunchuks - we all know the Wii is best served when playing head-to-head games with friends. Why not have some extra controllers on hand for those times when your pals are over? There is a package called Wi Play that has one extra remote and a bunch of games together. Find it here, at Amazon.

Rechargeable Batteries - the Wiimote has a tendency to drain the life from AA batteries with hard play. Instead of ponying up six bucks for a pack of AA, why not get some rechargeable and get back in the game at a moment’s notice?

GameCube Controllers - the Wii is backward-compatible with GameCube games, but you have to have the controller to play them. These run about $20 - $25. Kind of annoying? Perhaps. Absolutely necessary? Absolutely.

GameCube Memory Cards - another Wii reality for the backwards-compatibility of GameCube. You need this to save your GameCube games. It’s gonna run you about $25.

Wii Points Cards - from John’s article - “One of the big attactions of the Wii is its Virtual Console, which lets you purchase classic games that originally came from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Super NES, the Nintendo 64, the Sega Genesis, and the TurboGrafx16.” Nintendo points currency exchange rate is 100 Wii points to the dollar, and can be purchased from the Wii console’s online store.

1 GB SD Cards - when you get close to filling up the console’s 512MB of onboard storage, you can use one of these to save your games and have extra space. Nintendo does have a brand, but any SD card will do.

Wireless Access Point - since the Wii has built-in wireless internet, it only makes sense to have either a wireless router or USB Wireless Access Point. Nintendo does sell a brand of USB wireless access points, but any one will do. We’re hooked up through a Linksys WRT54G router.

Wii Component Video Cable - The Wii won’t spit out HD graphics, but via the component video cable option, you can have 480P, DVD level graphics that look great - even on high-dollar LCD and plasma sets. To get 480P out of the Wii, you need to spend about $20 on the adaptor. (Note: Engadget and GamesSX Network had articles on making DIY component cables for the Wii.)

Thanks, John, for the great article!