The featured games make use of several aspects of the Wii Remote, such as its detection of rotation and depth movement through motion sensing and its infrared pointer.

[3] High scores are saved when playing in single-player mode, and achieving certain high scores awards the player with bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals for the respective game, along with a message sent to the Wii Message Board containing a short tip for that respective game.

[2] A shooting game similar to Duck Hunt[1] in which players go through several consecutive rounds of shooting objects that appear on the screen by pointing the Wii Remote at the Wii's sensor bar to aim and firing with the controller's trigger button.

[4][5] Objects include balloons, bullseye targets, clay disks, tin cans, and UFOs which descend from the sky and attempt to abduct tiny copies of the player's Mii.

[8] In single-player mode, the player must get through as many stages as possible before the time limit runs out, with each Mii found extending the number of seconds left on the timer and giving a certain number of points depending on how quickly the player locates and chooses them.

[8] In multiplayer mode, two players compete to find the highest number of Mii characters within two minutes.

[6] The player controls their Mii character around an open background via the Wii Remote pointer and tries to burst large, falling bubbles and prevent them from descending to the bottom of the screen, twisting the Wii Remote in order to rotate the character and fit them into the silhouettes on the bubbles and pushing certain buttons to cycle between different poses that the Mii can strike in order to conform to the shapes of the silhouettes.

[10] An air hockey game comparable to Pong[5][8][11] in which two players try to hit a laser puck across the screen into the opponent's goal using a paddle controlled via the Wii Remote pointer.

[13] The player controls their Mii character riding a cow as they attempt to navigate a short course within a time limit while knocking down scarecrows and avoiding hurdles.

[14][9][13] The game is played by holding the Wii Remote horizontally and using it similarly to a steering wheel:[11] tilting the remote left and right to steer the cow; tilting it forwards or backwards to accelerate or decelerate, respectively; and quickly raising the controller upwards to jump.

[16] The only included minigame that can be played using the Wii Nunchuk,[17][11] the tank is moved using either the D-pad or the Nunchuk's analog stick, while the tank's gun turret is independently moved by aiming the Wii Remote at the sensor bar.

[18] The tank can fire shells from its gun and place land mines on the ground.

In multiplayer mode, two players progress through the missions, competing to destroy the most enemy tanks.

[19] These tech demos were first publicly shown at the 2006 E3 convention alongside the games used in Wii Sports.

[20] Wii Play officially began development when Miyamoto decided that the demonstrational games would be fleshed out and released together for the console.

As the games progressed further into development, more attention was put towards Sports and the team ultimately decided that the latter was the higher priority.

[24] Wii Play received mixed reviews from critics,[31] holding an aggregate score of 61.64% on GameRankings[25] and 58/100 on Metacritic.

[30] Despite mixed reception, Wii Play was an immense commercial success,[36] frequently making it onto The NPD Group's video game sales charts throughout the 2000s after its release in North America.

[50] Strong sales were largely attributed to the game's inclusion of an extra Wii Remote at the time of its release and its North American price of US$49.99 in comparison to a separate Wii Remote which cost $39.99 at the time, meaning that the game itself essentially costed $10.