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The Wii Generation
By RR | January 7, 2010
I’ve got an old Atari 2600 and about 50 games sitting in my basement. Not too long ago, I hooked it up and played for a few hours with some 30-something friends. And as bad as the graphics are, the games were still fun to revisit, at least for a little while. Nostalgia, no doubt, played a role: I remember playing all of these games in the 1980s. But another big part of Atari was the kind of community it promoted–gaming was a sort of social interaction with friends and families.
This Christmas, our family got a Nintendo Wii. Nintendo, I think, has recaptured the spirit of the original game consoles by making it easy and fun for people to play together. Game concepts are simple, for the most part, and the graphics are pretty limited. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is getting together with friends, firing up Wii sports or Wii Fitness, and having a blast. Designing your own Mii (avatar) is part of this, too: Wii lets you put a very human face (your own) on gaming.
There is a cultural lament about video games and their detrimental effect on kids today. Cultural conservatives routinely blame video games for violent, anti-social behavior among adolescents. No doubt, some games seem to promote violence, and there are even some tentative studies linking violent behavior to violent video games. But when I sit down to play Lego Star Wars with my four-year-old or challenge my wife to “Advanced Step” Aerobics (I rule), there is also something good going on. Something that those conservatives have been grousing about for years: family time.
Nintendo realizes this. So does Walmart, given its recent advertisements for the Wii, which feature families playing games together.
All of this to say that when my four-year-old grows up, he may owe a thing or two to video games–and not just fine motor skills. His sense of family and his memories of together time will involve, I am sure, video games. And that is not a bad thing.
Categories: News | Tags: wii | 1 Comment »
I have always thought that an attack on video games was dumb. I still think that video games does not cause people to act violent in real life. Same with alcohol, I drank a lot and never hit a woman or girl friend. but if you take some one else they get a couple of drinks and they just want to start a fight. I think it just bring out what people are prone to anyway. I think the same is true with video games. It’s not the games that cause violence.
I think that the wii bring back memories of the old classic games. Lately I have be play the new punch out and it is awesome. It really get you to work out. Nintendo is great and I think they always do a great job.
Samuel
Posted by: Web Design Richardson tx on January 13th, 2010 at 3:16 pm