0Despite the supposed risk of injury or damage, EVERYONE seemed to want a Wii for Christmas. I heard it mentioned in queues, on buses, in pubs. People even seem comfortable with the counter-intuitive pronunciation. But then everything Nintendo has been doing has been counter-intuitive - and right.
They produced a 'wee' thing, while the gargantuan competition - not so much a housebrick as a paving slab, lumbered onto shop shelves alongside it, but the only significant mainstream attention payed to the PS3 it seems, is a damning review by the NY Times and an unfortunate victim of a trigger happy cop.
I have seen one. And don't mistake me: when Sony get around to making sufficient numbers to have some to send to the Old World, I will have one. But I saw it sitting in CEX in London, playing some high definition FPS and after admiring it for a bit, I walked on, without a pang of longing, if truth be told.
Not like the morning two weeks previously when, rising at the ungodly hour of 5AM, I did something unseemly for a 36 year old and waited to pick up my pre-ordered Wii.
But the true potency of the Wii, which belies Sony's churlish statements about it being a novelty and a toy, has just been revealed over the couple of days that mark Christmas.
The house being full of 'non-gamers' as purists derisively call them, they wanted to play with the Wii. How many FAMILIES sat watching someone machinegun soldiers and monsters into the dirt on their PS3s? Not many. I wager most were consigned to dimly lit bedrooms, pushing on level after level, admiring the mip-mapping, anti-aliasing or whatever the programmer buzzwords are these days.
Meanwhile my sisters were having FUN. They picked up the Wii Sports bowling easily, and giggled at their initial lame attempts to time their tennis swing. They also had a chance to win - I wasn't so much better than them as to make the whole thing redundant and frustrating.
Incidentally, the one other game they wanted to play was 'Buzz' the music and general knowledge game show for PS2 that has done suprisingly well over the last year.
What Nintendo has done has brought participation and inclusiveness back to gaming. It's breaking down the walled garden that defines the gaming 'minority'. it's taking gaming back out of the bedroom and back into the living room, in a way not truly seen, perhaps since the Atari VCS, or maybe the NES. Many of these Wiis will stay under the television. Many of those Wiis will be used by mums and dads as well as alienated teens and gadget-spoiled 20-something lads.
Of course, the Playstation 3 will be a huge success and the hardcore will continue to be the backbone of gaming's community and market. But Sony will do well to learn some lessons as well as continue to trash the Wii, and look seriously at their somewhat arrogant and offputting marketing at the same time. After all, having FUN is not a crime.