Whine of the Week

Under the category of: Did He Really Say That? In one of the most ill-advised and counter-intuitive whines I've heard recently, the Financial Express is reporting that Sony Computer Entertainment America Spokesperson Dave Karraker recently said: "Wii could be considered an impulse buy more that anything else, but we believe the PS3 will be the console to attract hardcore, committed gamers, while Wii will do little beyond satisfying new and casual players."

Damn. Seems to me that satisfying new and casual players is the space to occupy. But no, Sony introduced the Ford Expedition of gaming consoles for the truly hardcore. Uh Huh. And just which market do you think will be the biggest? Not to mention that Wii has re-defined gaming, gotten it off the couch, roped in a bunch of girl-gamers and extended the market far beyond its previous demographic. Could Sony be worried? One of my first posts, just after the holiday gift-buying season, declared Wii the winner. Don't see any reason to change my opinion now. And this really catty reaction from the Sony shill is the recipient of the very first Pop Impulse Whine of the Week award.

Wii Has *So* Won

The fat lady of gaming has sung, and Wii won. Kicked butt, in fact. Up against the much-touted Sony Play Station and Microsoft's Xbox, Wii has captured a nice share of recent game-box retail sales. The Nintendo device won gamer's hearts for a bunch of reasons. First, Wii is fun . Sleek and uber-modern, Wii is minimalist in appearance and footprint. The Wii wand is another unique marketing hook. It adds a tactile dimension to gaming, and more importantly, encourages an upright, on-your-feet playing style. Clever, that. But even more clever, or serendipitous as the case may be, the out-the-door story about gamers getting so excited that they actually broke things with wands flying out of their hands. The company, of course, had an instant fix. So no harm done there, but on the other side of the coin, the story drove every gamer in the universe crazy to see what the commotion was all about. Bingo, instant attraction.

Another big win is the way the device is playing with the girl-gamers, who evidently disdain the couch-potato approach to gaming. And of course, the similarity of Sony's device to the Ford Expedition can't be discounted. Overkill for current gamers, and the rest of us are not yet sure we want to cede control of our entire multimedia universe to Sony. More likely to Apple, Inc.

Xbox continues to impress, in an indelibly Microsoft sort of way. And its sales are robust. It's got some great games, but it *is* a Microsoft product and has that designed by committee of Redmond geeks feel to this writer. Bottom line, Microsoft has a lot of irons in the fire and its projects have been known to slip, or to slide down the internal priority rankings. Nintendo is focused. That fact ensures their total commitment to the gaming world.

All of this begs the question, wil gaming consoles morph into home multimedia content control and distribution hubs? Or, will some other device - probably with an Apple on it somewhere - fill that space, leaving gaming to dedicated consoles? I tend to go with the latter scenario, which fits with the Wii's ascendancy as well as with Apple's recent introductions. I know a little bit about this stuff, in case you're wondering. I introduced AEGIS: Guardian of the Fleet for Time Warner Interactive, before the group had its own, in-house communications people. And I gave Rob and Graham at Trilobyte their first corporate ID through a comprehensive press kit I wrote for The 7th Guest. Landeros designed the porfolio cover, and it was as killer as the game graphics. But that's another post for another day.