Posted on 06/07/2006 12:15:11 PM PDT by G. Stolyarov II
Grandma and Grandpa on the video game...never happens.
The OL (Office Lady) hurrying home to play saber tea party...again, an unlikely scenario.
Well, nothing lasts forever...cherry blossoms last only about a week, and that is what the Japanese like the most about them. Nothing lasts forever, especially beauty. There must be more to a person's worth than outside appearance.
Companies change, too...or they should change.
Last year, the video-game software and hardware industry brought in about $27 billion.
For the past five years, Nintendo has been asking the question, "Why do people who don't play video games NOT play them?"
I know the answer -
1. They are too noisy 2. They are too complicated 3. They are too 'busy' 4. They are too expensive 5. I don't want to be identified with young boy twirps... 6. They are not interesting 7. They are restrictive in where they can be done... 8. They are...
Okay, I'm off topic.
Nintendo has a game - Nintendogs - that it wants to use to lure female gamers...it's working. Nintendo has a game - Brain Age - that is designed for the elderly. 2 million sales says its working, too.
Nintendo is betting the Electroplankton farm that it can do what other hard-core gamers cannot - convert new gamers.
There are two principles at work -
1. Don't listen to your customer - to find a new audience you need a new approach. 2. Cutting design is more important than cutting technology - easy, sexy, appealing is more important than powerful and decorated with more features.
That's what Nintendo thinks?
What do you think?
1. They're expensive.
2. They waste time.
2. They have nothing to do with life and living.
They're addictive.
Sounds like drugs, huh?
Sorry, can't count. (1. 2. 3. 4.)
My wife and I (mid 50s) love video and computer games. We each set aside time to play and wish we had more time. Age has less to do with it than frame of mind. The games I play involve playing online with others requiring teamwork and strategy and she plays all kinds of shoot-em-up, slash and bash games as well as brain games on game systems and with handhelds. These games force you to think, develop strategies and keep your mind young and active and keeps your manual dexterity at its peak.
My husband is 52 and plays with his Nintendo golf every night and other games when his son or my daughter, both 26, come out to the house. He has 3 grandchildren. It helps him unwind after a hectic day at work and makes him quite pleasant to live with. My motto: Never take the boyish qualities out of the man, LOL!
Sounds like skydiving, motorcycle racing, coin collecting, etc. Pretty much any type of hobby or recreation could fit your criteria.
Certainly not any more than watching sports, in person or on TV and with sports you're a couch potato observer, not a participant.
"Grandma and Grandpa on the video game...never happens."
LIES! My mother and father, in their seventies, totally smacked the venerable Super Mario Brothers all the way through the secret levels, negative worlds, extra levels, and all the way to the end - no warps, no cheats, no kidding. They did it with the 100 lives on level three...
Gaming helped my father regain verbal and hand-eye skills after a devastating stroke.
Even now, at 79, my mother is the master of Mega Man. Old people gamers rock like a chair...
Yep, don't do that either. Good thing ocassionally being o FR isn't a vice, huh.
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