With Good Reason

Shortly after our wedding I asked my wife what she’d like as a wedding gift: a digital SLR or a Nintendo Wii console (this is as romantic as many techies get, after all). To my surprise and eventual delight she chose the Wii. We lucked out by arriving to a Best Buy barely an hour after the shipment arrived and scored a Wii console that someone else had probably been waiting on for weeks.

And so I joined the dark side: Nintendo has long had a negative stigma among gamers for releasing too many “cutesy” games on its under-powered consoles. These moves were deliberate, as Nintendo claimed to be targeting the family market rather than hardcore gamers. To that end, the Wii is no different from the N64 or previous “cutesy” consoles – however the revolutionary controller makes the idea of a family console a reality.

The controller comes in two parts. The main piece (wand) looks like a thin TV remote controller and communicates remotely with a sensor strip that you attach above or below the television. Once that’s setup, you can create a Mii –a computer likeness of yourself used in certain games- on the main console screen. After that you’re ready to play Wii Sports, which is included with the console. There are 5 sports included: Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. The games are generally not “complete” – for instance, the baseball games are only 3 innings and involve pitching/batting – but this may be a blessing in disguise given their physical nature. To hit the ball in baseball, you must swing the controller like a bat. The tennis game allows a large array of volleys, spin-shots and speedy serves, depending on your wrist movement. The boxing game is a great aerobic workout, and also makes use of the secondary nun-chuck controller. It does not take much game play to work up a good sweat.

What is most remarkable about Wii Sports is that any one of the games can be learned in under 5 minutes and requires no real “gaming” background. Hence, your mother, father, children and the rest of the family can quickly get into the gaming action. A recent article in the Toronto Star reported how Wii and other Nintendo products are being used to sharpen the minds and bodies of senior citizens.

At the Briton House Retirement Residence yesterday, about 60 seniors gathered for a short workshop presented by Home Instead Senior Care, a provider of non-medical services, on keeping the mind sharp with video games.
…
Twenty-five per cent of people playing computer and video games are 50 years or older, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada. There’s evidence that people who use their brains tend not to get Alzheimer’s as much as those who don’t regularly exercise their grey matter, said Jack Diamond, scientific director of the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada.

Next stop? Wii Fit. Personal trainers, beware.