well  you have to be biased if you argue sony did not broaden the audience to adults as well as kids, it's the same thing you see wii doing today except it broadens the horizons even futher to people who like to have short gaming sessions on wii sports for 30mins, people like my mum who is 60 and never cared for gaming.

I still do not believe video gaming is mainstream in the same way basketball, US football, baseball, and other sports are mainstream and encouraged from parent to child. Video games, minus a few blockbuster titles on the Wii, are a sedentary activity that will lead to a loss of self esteem due to the weight gain and lack of social interaction if substituted for little league baseball or another sport during a child's early years.

I would encourage and love it if my child came home from school and wanted to play outside practicing his/her sport until bed time. I would discourage my child from coming home and plopping himself down playing video games until bed time.

First, if my child finds he is talented at a sport and has a shot professionally, then he/she can support me with a million plus dollar home when they make it pro. If not, at least I have a reason to get shitfaced in the bleachers after work and my child's sports achievments to brag about during barbecues.

Second, sports teach a lot of values to children including discipline, team-work, respect of the rules by which the game is played, and on. Video games as a primary solitary activity don't teach much unless we are talking what many call those "casual" Nintendo games on the DS and Wii.

Third, participation in sports leads to a higher self esteem overall than videogaming. Sports requires a child to be in physical shape, teaches them about group interaction, and teaches them proper social interaction without threatening to "turn on my hack" or scream at another person via headset things they would never have the balls to say to that person face-to-face.

Finally, participation in sports is respected, while video gaming is still carrying the stereotype of the "live with mom, basement dwelling, acne filled face, fat ass" stereotype of hardcore gamers. Case in point, do we look at those top MLG gamers the same way we do a Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and on? No, most of us including myself are unaware of God like, Michael Jordan type gamers. There are none. What MLG has are teams who do well at specific games, while there is no individual who is the best at all games or a dominator in a certain genre.

I'm pretty sure Pong legitimized gaming as a "form of entertainment."  Pong was up there with pool, darts, poker, and other bar games, and I think all of those are considered "legitimate forms of entertainment."  I think it was mostly Pac-Man and Donkey Kong (and maybe to a lesser extent the acid trip that was Q-Bert and some other weird games) that really upped the ante and got people to start thinking of them more artistically, and then a few dozen NES and PC games of the 80's that legitimized gaming as an art form.  I don't know why Sony thinks they had anything to do with any of this.  Pac-Man was bigger than any game Sony ever made.

No, Yes.

Nintendo saved the industry from Atari's failure. It was still a very niche market till the PlayStation. So Sony is correct on this one, they did bring video games to the mass-market between the last two generations. Now, Nintendo is expanding on what Sony has already done and broadening the market even farther.

On the whole it's a pretty good article that's rather enlightening on the direction of the PSN.

Of course, nobody here will discuss anything like why we get so few ps1 classic in the West.  Instead, everyone will argue over the one controversial line in the whole interview.

At least the OP will get his VG$.  =/

You don't understand the meaning of 'mainstream entertainment'

TV, Movies, Books etc are all mainstream entertainment and many of the arguments you present against gaming can be made against these forms of entertainment too. 

VG$ don't even exist anymore, you don't get anything for threads.

Considering that the PSone brought gaming to the mainstream. I think that what he says is true... In a way.

I think the sales of the PSone, and even PS2, compared to consoles that came before them, say more than enough on how the PS brand expanded the market... Hugely.

And i don't understand how they narrowed it.

I think of mainstream in terms of what is more apparent to the non video game consumer and the level of social acceptability.

There is no ESPN for video games making video games not transparent for the non video game consumer.

Video games are nowhere near the social acceptability as sports or other forms of physical recreation.

They may be mainstream in terms of sheer sales numbers and dollars spent, but if you ask non-gamers who do outnumber gamers what they think of video games, then you will get a range of opinions from ignorance to firm opinions of I find them okay, they suck, video games are for nerds and on.

Mainstream is more than dollars.