I don't think it's that women would rather play Wii Sports, or Mario Kart.

It's more of the fact that women would rather play bowling, or a kart racing game, regardless of who's branded it. Look at Carnival Games and EA Sports Active, as well as The Sims.

It's not the game - Animal Crossing, Sims, Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, but the activities they are.

Nintendo has been lucky to be the ones to majorly promote such games, and has been rewarded richly. However, I don't think that means that they are the only one that can do it, just the ones that do it right very often for their user base.

Think along the lines of FFXIII, Alan Wake, and gran Turismo. Almost all of them going on their fifth year, the hypes never been stronger.

Well it seems like the killer game for this interface which might be available on release too. it would be great to have with multiplayer, whether with the same console or system link it doesn't matter. If you ever saw the developer walkthrough where they zoomed out Fable 2 it could probably be just like that. Its very sims-ish and it would be something that a lot of people could get into for entirely different reasons.

Well said, i was just about to say something along those lines.

Not exactly I was more implying that after 1 more year it is guaranteed that Wii will have won this generation.  I and a decent amount of people already believe Nintendo has won.  I believe that the next generation won't be for another 2-3 years at the very least.  I probably could have worded it a little better, but I don't think NATAL will be released any time soon.  So if it isn't released for another year it will barely help Microsoft.  They probably should have saved this for the next generation.

Points taken.  I suppose Nintendo has just released games in genres that girls find more interesting.  The other companies are catching on and realizing that more and more girls/women are interested in gaming than they might have first thought.  It isn't like Sony and Microsoft neglected them entirely but they didn't really put too much effort at the start/over the past few years.  Sure some women love to play FPS, sports, etc.. but a majority are probably more into Sims type games, Kart racing, bowling, etc..

My sisters liked the trailer I showed them of Natal and Milo. But they are just asking questions like "How much will it cost? ; When is the release? Will a lot of games make use of it?" and such. I just hope Microsoft can release it next generation, so they can iron out some R&D with the project.

Correct. I don't think many would argue that Nintendo hasn't done more for the female gaming crowd than MS and Sony combined. And that's been the problem: New genres and games have emerged over the past 5-6 years that target female gamers more than ever before. The secret of this decade has been that it's the decade of the female gamer.

I'd venture to bet that in the 90's, the typical console demo was 90% male, and 10% female...While it's now getting closer to 60/40 in favor of males. The secret isn't that men are shying away from gaming, but Female are taking their rightful place as counterparts in the gaming community. And why this surge? Not because their preferences have changed, but Nintendo, primarily, marketed towards them.

Another good example, I think, of a 3rd party really reaching out to them would be the music & rhytmn games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Singstar. I've regularly seen women fighting over control of the game because it was intuitive, and something they enjoyed. And guess what? Rock Band and Guitar Hero supercede many big franchises in terms of revenue like Madden.

Every company needs a balanced strategy to get both male and female gaming audiences, just like the movies do. Not every movie is targeted to a 50/50 male/female audience, with 50/50 being over/under 30 years of age. Some moives, like a Crank 2, are absolutely designed for male audiences, while anything with Matthew McCaughahey (SP?) is probably catering to ladies....Is that a bad thing? No. Because theater dollars don't change if a guy or girl spends them. Hopefully game companies are learning the same thing.

And I don't think it really just comes down to genres, but style choices, and making games intuitive. Kingdom Hearts is pretty popular among females I know, but it's still a pretty solid RPG. Kudos to SE about stylizing it to garner a bigger, more inclusive audience. Even under Wagamama Fashion: Girls Mode lies a very solid business simulator...It's just covered in glitter and beads.

No. Just no.

[see what I did there?]

MikeB told me that NATAL and Milo were just smoke and Mirrors....Why should I believe you guys?