Another reason why the Wii absolutely rules

Even retirees love Wii! Here's an amazing story by intrepid reporter Lisa Baertlein for the Reuters news organization...

"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 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 Xbox 360 and Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).'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.

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 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."

PS3 in a world of pain

Sales figures analyzed on the Compete.com blog reveal that Sony's new Play Station 3 is faring pretty poorly on the sales front. Not only was it trounced by Nintendo's Wii, it's also failing to outsell Microsoft's year-old XBox 360. Something tells me that a third-place trophy is not what the corporate bosses were expecting when they debuted their stunningly powerful next-generation console.

Personally, I'm still happy with my PS2 and have no plans to drop half a grand on a new system!

Matt Pace reports:

* The Wii, the clear underdog with its relatively modest specs, surprised many skeptics by sustaining its post-launch interest and outselling the PS3. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who tried in vain to find a Wii at anywhere close to its suggested retail price.
* The PS3 was a quick flash in the pan that fizzled on the backs of negative publicity, its lofty price and supply shortages. After only a few weeks on the market, the PS3 was attracting barely as many shoppers as the year-old Xbox 360.
* Xbox 360 demand spiked at the start of the holiday shopping season thanks in part to a highly publicized sale on Amazon, spill-over interest in the Wii and PS3, and the introduction of the smash hit Gears of War.
* With Xbox 360 and PS3 demand now running in lock-step, it will be difficult for Sony to gain ground on Microsoft due to a perceived price disparity between the two consoles and Microsoft’s broader game catalog.

Wii have a problem...

There's an awesome new website called Wiihaveaproblem.com that documents the stunning destruction people have wrought on their living rooms while playing the new Nintendo Wii.

In case you don't follow this stuff, the new technology in this system is that you don't just push buttons on the controller, you swing it around like you're actually wielding a sword, throwing a pitch, etc. However, it seems that Nintendo did not anticipate the sheer fury with which Americans go about their living room gyrations, and only built in a dainty little strap that can easily snap off.

Consequently, the controllers ("Wiimotes") are being flung every which way, causing all kinds of havoc.

Here's one example -- a person who managed to impale his own TV with a controller while playing a bowling game on the Wii:

Another poor soul who destroyed her TV during a game of Wii reports:

"You read those little blurbs on various video game blogs about how some punk threw their Wiimote at their friend's TV and think, "Harhar, that guy must've had the coordination of a stroke patient. What an idiot!" Well, guess who feels like a complete and utter douchebag? *raises hand*

Words cannot describe how stupendously retarded I feel at the moment. It's like when you read one of those ridiculous Penthouse letters and think that it could never happen to you, and then surprisingly find yourself in an orgy with some dirty white trash, the dirty white trash's mother, a midget, and a guy named Pablo. Except this doesn't involve any naked chicks or a penis that is way out of proportion to its owner's body. Nope. This just involves a broken Wiimote strap, a broken tv, and a broken heart. =("