Monday, January 07, 2008

The power of Wii

First of all, Happy New Year to anyone who reads this. I'll be making a bit more of an effort to use Del.icio.us and start linking to a few gaming blogs to see how far this blogging puppy can run.
So what's been happening? Well, I bought a new TV over the Christmas sales so my old telly, which is a bitch to haul up the stairs, is now sitting in my gaming den that my missus has allowed me to create in one corner of a spare room. I just need to rig it up online and off we go again with Call of Duty 4, which incidentally performed very well in the top ten best Xbox lives games of 2007.
Over the weekend I had a small reunion with my best mates from uni and their wife/husband/kid. After a red wine-fuelled evening Sunday morning was a little subdued until my best mate pulled out his Nintendo Wii. Nothing strange there you might ask, but two things came out of it. Read on.
Firstly, it was a joint present for his wife and him for Christmas. Read that again. 'For his wife and him'. Gone are the days of hardcore gamers in their bedroom - I even had a conversation with her about Mario Galaxy. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Put simply, Nintendo has done their job and it was great to chat to someone who is as passionate about Mario as I have been over the last 17 years or more.
Secondly, out came Wii Bowling. Up stepped my 58-year-old father-in-law. He's never been into gaming, but he was a dab hand at the bowling alley and you could tell he was intrigued. Nintendo has touched someone who's nearly 60, and a female. It's opened up gaming to those who never thought they would have a go. That, my friends, is the power of Wii.

2 comments:

Joff said...

This year, my Christmas Day evening was spent watching the girlfriend and her mum playing Wii Sports Bowling on their Nephew's/Grandson's Wii.

The mum was doing particularly well for someone over the age of 60 having never seen a Wii two hours earlier, but was now scoring numerous strikes to the amusement of everyone else in the room!

When you've got friends over, the Wii is king but when you're home alone in just your pants, the 360 and Call of Duty 4 reign supreme.

Tim said...

Totally hear what you're saying - I NEVER thought I'd see my father-in-law have a go at a games console!