Packaging in Wii Sports with the Wii is one of the most important things Nintendo has ever done. And Wii Sports may yet prove to be one of the studio's most important pieces of software, a bare bones game that in its own right is as spectacular as any blockbuster.

Nintendo's guiding philosophy with the Wii – of producing a console that appeals to everyone, and can be accessed by everyone – is a laudable one, but one sometimes in danger of drowning of rhetoric. What it desperately needed was a figurehead and an emblem for this, something to grab the mainstream imagination and showcase the potential of the new control interface in an easily explainable way. Wii Sports does this.

As a conventional sports game the game is limited to the point of being broken. The five sports included – Tennis, Golf, Bowling, Boxing and Baseball – are cut down versions of their real life counterparts, and come up poorly in comparison with other sports titles. The visuals are, obviously, laughable when placed against not just sports games from this generation and the last, but all contemporary console games. It's My First Sports Title, constructed from blocks of squares and triangles, and washed in simple primary colours. All things considered, it looks like something Iwata's people cooked up during their lunch hour. And with the skimpiest selection of play modes and options, it's not like they stuffed the disc with multiple activities for our time.

But that's sort of the point. If Nintendo are to construct an appreciation in new gamers to games, the first thing they need to do is tear down the artifice of traditional gaming. The Wiimote does that to control schemes, destroying the ridiculous button setup that has tyrannised us for generations: Wii Sports expertly complements that with a look and a feel that allows it to bypass normal gaming expectations. Wii Sports isn't designed to impress the online boards crowd: an obvious point, but one that some have missed in all their caps-locked hissyfits. Complaining about its lacklustre presentation is about is like shouting into a hurricane.

Wii Sports entire raison d'etre is to fashion a playing experience that's free from the signpoints of normal gaming, a creation of a sort of blank slate on which the general public can build their own new experiences. The sports motif is an excellent one, providing players with nearly all of the information they need, and lending itself extraordinarily to the motion-based control scheme. Swing the racket, throw the bowling ball. It's the game that needs an instruction manual least, and it's the perfect concept to explain how the Wii works to parents.

The console's motion sensitivity and the simplicity of the sports lend themselves to easy and fun playing experiences. 'Playing is believing' reads like a marketing suit vomited all over his keyboard, but it rings true with Wii Sports. Blasé and unexciting on paper and computer screens, but spectacular in practice, Wii Sports' power becomes apparent in the looks of astonishment on newcomers' faces when they swing for the first time, and the crunching of their mental machinery at the concept of button-free mechanics. Wii Sports proves itself not in in-game moments, but in the atmosphere it creates, the potent attraction it has for passers-by and the joyful experiences it hatches. My roommate has never played games before, but she was having a coronary screaming at Wii Boxing. My mother barely knows what a 'Nintendo' is, but she was still flinging her arms and laughing like some sort of insane woman. The virgin stories are cluttering the online conversation. At times like these Nintendo's wild aims seem to crystallise in the air.

It succeeds in various degrees obviously, through the sports catalogue included. Wii Tennis and Boxing are the undisputable highpoints of the title, promising rompous sessions on the sofa, and easily the sports with the most depth. Baseball, Boxing and Golf are great, but somehow throwaway. Boxing can be clumsy, but otherwise is amazing, like duelling with phantoms. Tennis is world-shattering in its own regard: it's a bit rough around the edges, with movements not always correlating properly, and the noted lack of player movement control, but it's easy to forgive it. Other studios will eventually improve upon this – Mario Tennis on the Wii gets the blood pumping – but we've no problem with Wii Tennis' limitations. Giving the player control of the tennis player would've confused the impression it gave. Wii Sports isn't meant to be a final game: it's a distillation, a metonymy. Haters throw the tech demo accusation but it's a label that Wii Sports wears with pride. Like the best tech demos, it succeeds not because of what it is, but because of what it represents and the possibilities inspires. And when the tech it showcases is so exhilarating and inspiring, you can't help but be moved.

Twilight Princess is unquestionably the game that has got fans' keyboards chattering at the Wii launch, but it's in Wii Sports that the console finds a particular kind of champion. Just as a Nintendo 64 without Super Mario 64 was unthinkable, so too is a Wii without Wii Sports. It's one of the most perfect launch games we've seen.