May the 4th, was it with you? What is the Wii's least played Star Wars game? Official Nintendo Channel data report.

That's no moon, but that might be Bean 1.

Coffee Beans
May the 4th, was it with you? If you didn't sleep all day, I hope that your Saturday, May the 4th of 2013, was an eventful day! While there were no Star Wars video games played in the Coffeehouse on May the 4th, there was at least one Star Wars movie watched (Episode III), and Bean 1 and Bean 2 ran around in the backyard for a little while with some Star Wars gear. (Which, one of them may, or may not, be in the picture above. It probably depends if you ask me, or Mrs. Coffee.)

Speaking of Star Wars video games, there were at least six retail Star Wars games released for the Wii and at least three Star Wars games released on the Wii's Virtual Console service, from my count. We own three of the Wii retail Star Wars titles, but only two of them have been played.

The game-play "Force" (if you will!) was very strong behind the Wii Star Wars retail titles, with each of them now having more than one million "Total Hours" of game-play reported. But, which Wii Star Wars retail game does the "Force" appear to be the weakest with, resulting in the lowest amount of replay value? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look at the least played Star Wars Wii retail game based on the average hours reported "Per person".

The Brew
Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels is the Wii's least played Star Wars game "Per person", according to the data reported through the Nintendo Channel. The game was released on November 11, 2008, and it was developed by Krome Studios and published by LucasArts. It received an ESRB rating of "TEEN" with "Fantasy Violence" listed as the only content for parents and gamers to be aware of.

Not a day's worth of lightsaber training at the Jedi Academy?

As the image above shows, the reported average is 6 Hours 42 Minutes "Per person", and when compared to the other Wii Star Wars games this makes Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels the least played Star Wars game on the system "Per person".

Just because the game has the lowest reported average "Per person" out of all the Wii Star Wars retail games, doesn't mean Lightsaber Duels hasn't been played by a lot of Wii owners though. The game now has approximately 275,065 U.S. Wii owners with game-play data reported via the Nintendo Channel, which is over 65,000 more U.S. Wii owners with data reported than 2 years ago.

For comparison to other Wii games, Lightsaber Duels currently has more U.S. Wii owners with data reported than Endless Ocean does, which released before it; but it has less Wii owners with data reported than Animal Crossing: City Folk, which released just a few days after it in 2008.

Did critics and customers enjoy swinging their Wii Remotes like lightsabers in the game though, considering it has the lowest average play time "Per person" of all the Star Wars games on the system? Well, the game has a "professional" critic review score average of 54.89%, based on 18 reviews on GameRankings.com. The game's customer review score average is 72.53%, based on 83 customer reviews from Amazon.com. The difference between the critic and customer review averages is probably a reflection of the game being enjoyed by a much younger audience, probably its target audience, which might not care if everything is pixel perfect in a game.

Caffeinated Thoughts
I haven't played Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels, though I have watched some of The Clone Wars cartoons and the movie. If you haven't seen any footage from Lightsaber Duels, the video below is the trailer for the game:

I have enjoyed several Star Wars games over the years, including The Force Unleashed on the Wii, but one disappointment in recent years was there not being an exclusive Wii Star Wars game that used the Wii MotionPlus accessory. Knowing that Lightsaber Duels released a few years before the Wii MotionPlus accessory was and it attempted to translate Wii Remote swings to lightsaber swings, I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel to the game using the Wii MotionPlus accessory.

I kept thinking there would be a Wii Star Wars game released with extremely accurate lightsaber game-play, like what Ubisoft did with Red Steel 2, but there was never one that used the Wii MotionPlus accessory. Considering Microsoft was able to get Kinect Star Wars, and used that game to heavily promote/sell Kinect units, I'm surprised (or, maybe I'm not at this point?) that Nintendo didn't pay to get a Wii Star Wars game released that used the Wii MotionPlus accessory.

If Nintendo is wanting to sell a few more Wii MotionPlus controllers to Wii U owners, I think one great way would be to announce an exclusive Wii U Star Wars game that uses Wii MotionPlus controls for the lightsaber actions in it; I would probably buy it day one. While I really do enjoy the Wii U and think being able to play games on the GamePad is great, I think it's unfortunate that we will probably not see a Star Wars game released with Wii MotionPlus controls now, because of Nintendo's move away from "motion controls" as they were on the Wii.

Questions
Have any of you played Lightsaber Duels, and if so, what did you think about the game? Does it do a good job of translating Wii Remote swings to lightsaber swings?

Do you think it's unfortunate that Nintendo never had a Wii Star Wars game released that used Wii MotionPlus controls for the lightsaber controls? Also, did any of you play any Star Wars video game(s) or watch any of the Star Wars movies for May the 4th this year?

You can see some Star Wars related games and items on Amazon.com below!