Think it's still a fad? You have no idea what the Wii has already done to the game industry. And seriously they haven't even gotten started yet. The world you once knew is gone. I'm soon to take my Wii console (ha! thought you'd catch me in an inopportune pun didn't ya?) over to my 84-year old landlady's house so she can play it for the first time. I'm teaching her how to use a computer and so this is a natural progression. I'll let you know the results afterwards. Saw this on the front page of Yahoo & with today's plans in mind I had to highlight this. Stories like this have impact & reach broader audiences than any gaming-centric magazine can EVER do. John Lucas Wii game console bowling over retirees Story link By Lisa Baertlein Fri Mar 23, 11:33 AM EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Until two weeks ago, Ruth Ebert never had the slightest interest in the video games favored by her one and only granddaughter. "I'm 82 years old, so I missed that part of our culture. Soap operas, yes. Video games, no," chirped Ebert, who recently started playing a tennis game on Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS) new Wii video game console at the Virginia retirement community she calls home. "It was funny, because normally I would not be someone who would do that," said Ebert, who picked up the console's motion-sensing Wiimote and challenged the machine to a match. "I played tennis, if you can call it that, as a high school student. I had such fun doing it," she said. Ebert swung the Wiimote just like a tennis racquet and said playing the game reminded her of the feeling she had all those years ago. While she took the early on-court lead, the Wii beat her in the end. Still, it hurt less than her real-world losses: "I didn't mind losing to a video game. It couldn't rub it in." UNDERDOG DELIVERS Japan's Nintendo has been on a mission to expand the $30 billion global video game market far beyond the children and young males who make up its core consumers. And the company, a former underdog best known for fun, high-quality games based on off-beat characters like plumbers -- think Mario Bros. -- has sent shock waves through game industry with the unexpected and runaway success of the Wii. That $250 console has been stealing the show from Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.'s (6758.T)(NYSE:SNE - news) PlayStation 3, higher-powered consoles that are much more expensive than the Wii. While those rivals focused on cutting-edge graphics and high-tech bells and whistles, Nintendo focused on making game play easier, more intuitive and more appealing to a mass market. That bet paid off. The Wii outsold the new Microsoft and Sony consoles in January and February and is generating its own buzz with everyone from nuns to cancer patients to toddlers. There are Wii parties and Wii bowling contests. Players, who often look quite silly and occasionally injure themselves in fits of overzealous play, upload video of their Wii antics to a variety of technology Web sites like GameTrailers.com and Google's (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) YouTube. "I thought it was tremendous," said Ted Campbell, 77. Last week he played the Wii for the first time at Springfield, Virginia's Greenspring Retirement Community, where Ebert is also a resident. The community hasn't yet decided where to keep the Wii, although Ebert has volunteered her one-bedroom apartment, with its big-screen TV. WII WAVE Flora Dierbach, 72, chairs the entertainment committee at a sister facility owned by Erickson Retirement Communities in Chicago and helped arrange a Wii bowling tournament -- the latest Wii craze. "It's a very social thing and it's good exercise ... and you don't have to throw a 16-pound (7.25-kg) bowling ball to get results," said Dierbach, who added the competition had people who hardly knew each other cheering and hugging in the span of a few hours. "We just had a ball with it. You think it's your grandkids' game and it's not," she said, noting that Erickson paid for the Wiis in its facilities. Greenspring resident and long-time bowler Sim Taylor said his grandchildren are also great fans of video games. "I never could understand it," said Taylor, who at 81 has surprised himself by adding video games to his list of hobbies. That isn't the case with Millicent, his wife of 55 years. "She sticks with bridge," Taylor said.

So it's big news when Yahoo takes a story from EGM a few months back? It's great to see the elderly get into the Wii. However, that isn't going to be the huge pendulm shift you think it is John (the washimul of the Wii). For the Wii to gain a huge US marketshare, it has to do alot more than attract those below 10 years old and above 60...Which it might do, but I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket.

This one is pretty accurate

Both of you are wrong... wishimul typed with caps and his grammer was awful. John's posts are well written and thought out. Give the guy some credit.

Thank you euclid. I went through some of that in another forum I attended last year. It's not good to talk positively about Nintendo it seems. Yes I'm a Nintendo fan. I don't pretend to be otherwise. But I'm just pointing out stories I think may be of interest. Sure EGM may have posted it long ago but Wii will make impact having stories like these in less gaming-centric publications. The middle-aged man working in a pharmacy is not going to read EGM most likely. But he may run across these well-placed Yahoo blurbs while casually browsing the 'net. I have just seen another Yahoo featured story on Wii. Something tells me either Nintendo has put down some ad space or Yahoo contributors are genuinely impressed with Wii. That or their editors anyhow. Either way it makes a lot of impact to people who would never consider otherwise. That was the point I was making by posting the story so you read for yourself. John Lucas