14 million. That’s the number of Wiis that have been sold in the 12 months since the console, formerly known as The Revolution, launched in November 2006. It became the fastest selling console in history and even managed to put a decent margin between itself and the Xbox 360, which already had a year’s head start. Nintendo couldn’t be happier with its success; the console which inspired countless jokes about its name and had been panned by critics for being underpowered has blown through all expectations placed on it. While the games have been less than stellar with a slew third-party titles of questionable quality, the first-party games — games released by Nintendo itself — have been monstrous hits. Games like “Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” and the recently-released “Super Mario Galaxy” have been among the highest rated, most anticipated games of all time. But is the Wii running out of steam or is it just getting started?

You can get people do some pretty strange things when it comes to playing games. I can’t imagine anyone who would consider tagging images to be “fun” — even when tagging my own images for personal use, it gets boring rather quickly. Yet, when placed within the context of a game, suddenly, these boring chores become fun. You almost have to wonder, what other kinds of things can you get someone to do in the name of fun and entertainment?

Except for the cases where an advertisement showed me a product I was actually interested in and maybe even gave me some piece of useful information, I’ve generally been insulted and annoyed by the majority of the ones I couldn’t outright, completely ignore. I’ve seen just about everything from blatant product placements in major motion pictures to being told I wasn’t cool unless I had the latest gizmo by the very people who made that gizmo. In a lament voiced by The Rolling Stones over 40 years ago, I’m just the latest version of the dude who can’t get no satisfaction.