This year for Thanksgiving, I brought home a Wii, including the never-opened, much buzzed-about Guitar Hero III.

My family, particularly my mom (who is decidedly not a gamer), took to it immediately. Mom’s unexpected enthusiasm and enjoyment of the Wii prompted my Dad to make seven trips to Target in a quest to bring back the holy grail of gaming consoles for the holidays. Lo and behold, Christmas morning, Santa had placed a Wii under the trii, and fun was had by all.

Why — when no other gaming system has come close to tempting her — does my mom like rockin’ out on the fake guitar till her fingers are sore and smashing my dad to pieces with her speed-of-light serves in Wii Sports tennis?

She doesn’t have to be a gamer to unleash her Inner Guitar Hero or Tennis Champ.

I came across a portentous article from back in 2005 when the world was still anticipating the release of the new console, which forcasts how Nintendo would revolutionize the gaming world — and did they ever. I never thought I’d see the day when Mom wanted a Nintendo for Christmas.

In the console arms race, as they say, you increasingly need a fair amount of digital dexterity as well as hand-eye coordination. The industry relies on gaming addicts. Nintendo has basically opted out of the arms race in favor of regaining all the casual gamers the other systems have left by the wayside. Now even senior citizens are excited about video games.

There you have it: if you want to the masses to use it, make it easy to use.

(Rock on, Mom!)

This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 12:43 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.