66% of Americans are gamers, thanks to casual gaming.

[Fastrabbit09]

Legend11 said:
The only thing that worries me about "casuals" and I mean the ones being brought in by games like Wii Sports is if they're going to be there for the long term. For example lets look at another hobby, doll collecting. During the Beanie Baby craze there were many people getting into the hobby of doll collecting, after the craze ended many people just there because it was the "in thing" got out of it. Basically I'm still not convinced that what's happen in gaming with casuals is a trend and not a craze.

u have to look deeper at why each is popular and what value each provides to customers

 

beanie babies were popular because Ty 'retired' certain models, so they raised in value, so people collected them for potential profit...it was like playing a cuddly version of the stock market....so when the bubble burst and the prices fell, it no longer held that appeal, so people stopped buying them

wii sports et al are popular because they are fun inherently...people aren't buying wiis for profit unless they are turning around and selling them to someone who wants a wii to keep and willing to pay 350-400+ for it...games have always been fun to the majority of people: solitaire, minesweeper, hearts, pinball, card games, tetris, jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, flash games, etc...and many wii and ds games appeal to the masses for the same reasons as those casual games do: fun quick escape that has low learning curve and isn't complicated...just like guitar hero and wii sports

hardcore games usually involve having to dedicate hours at a time to a play (even zelda:tp u need to play in at least hour-long sessions...if u play less then by the time u figure out where u are and what u need to do, u are about to stop playing)...that's why ds is doing so well: many of the games u can play for 5 or 10 mins here and there and then close screen and play again later

 u can go online daily and do your 10 minute wii fitness test on wii sports and have a few minutes of fun without having to commit to something longer...or do a quick brain age quiz...etc etc

that's why the people in this 'blue ocean' won't be looking at ps360

wii's competitors in that blue ocean are popcap games, crossword puzzles, sudoku, playing cards, monopoly, scrabble, balderdash, etc...

and as long as video games are sold that appeal to that demographic, they will continue to buy video games...but a large % aren't gonna 'graduate' to one of the other systems, as they hold no appeal to them