Wii Exercise for Seniors
I can’t imagine my grandmother picking up the Wiimote anytime soon…but maybe she should?
"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 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."
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 Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s 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.
Source Tags: wii, grandmother, nintendo
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