Looking For The Hottest Gamer Holiday Gift? (2000s Cabbage Patch Doll Craze Alert)

Debbie Schlussel.com ^ | 11/26/2007 | Debbie Schlussel

[goldstategop]

Sometimes I feel like I am a Jetson equpped as a Flintstone (or is that, Flintstonowitz?) in a Jetsons' world. An example: Even though I'm very good at video games and have excellent hand-eye coordination, I do not have any Wii stuff or other similar gamer software or equipment.

That said, I still keep up with it all. And the hottest gift--stores can't keep it on the shelves--is supposed to be the Nintendo Wii console. If you're looking for one, WiiTracker and WiiChat have the tips and info.

Customers are reportedly waiting early in the morning outside stores a lot these days for the new shipments, which are sold out by early morning. It's like every day is Black Friday. More on the craze here.

Also, a surprise to Nintendo: Wii is hugely popular with the senior citizen set. The Erickson senior living centers have more Wiis than I do. New Schlussel phrase: Wiitirement Community. Uh-oh. You know what that means. When your mom (not mine--no way) starts listening to Eminem, he's out. So, multiply that uncool factor by ten--or a cool hundy--for your grandma.

Of course, I don't think that way. I like being partially equipped like a Flintstone in the Jetsons' world. Or rather, being a Jetson, equipped partially like a Flintstone in the Jetsons' world. That way I get to watch and comment. And I don't have the corresponding hole in my wallet.

[goldstategop]

Coolest Gift Of The Decade:

Nitendo Wii Console

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[flintsilver7]

I’m fairly certain it’s not the gamers that are responsible for the Wii’s sales.

[Jedidah]

My college-age son got one for his birthday, and the whole family played it over the holiday. Great fun, good laughs, and some pretty decent exercise!

[psjones]

Sure glad I picked up a WII for my niece to give her husband back in August/September.

[EasySt]

Yeah, the Wii is cool, and the position sensed controls make for some fun games, recognizing and requiring actual motion like tennis and bowling moves for their games. It’s proving to be a good way to trick folks into a bit of exercise, potentially helping your favorite senior citizen to live longer.

Another option, which doesn't require as much swinging and jumping around, but which is technologically closer to "Jetson's" level gear is Sony's PlayStation 3. The PlayStation 3 is darn near a supercomputer. (In fact, you can use a Gigabit Switch to tie 8 of them together and make an actual, serious PS3 based supercomputer cluster, capable of running at around 200 GigaFlops.)

The PlayStation 3 also has the potential help your favorite senior citizen live longer, because Sony has teamed up with Stanford University to incorporate Stanford's Folding@home Protein Folding Distributed Computing project into the PlayStation 3's Operating System. With this code, the seriously powerful PlayStation 3 can work on Protein Folding Science to help find cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases and various forms of cancer caused by misfolding proteins. (When it's not playing BlueRay DVDs or graphically stunning games...)

FreeRepublic has their own Folding Team, Free Republic Folders - A Tribute to Ronald Reagan, where you can learn about the project and devote your spare Mac, PC or PS3 cycles to, Here. It's painless and fun! FreeRepublic's Folding Team is presently in 52nd place, out of thousands of teams world wide. Join us!

[Mjaye]

On Black Friday, when everyone was in line since midnight to get one, my daughter merely went to her neighborhood game store, walked in when they opened at a fairly reasonable hour, and bought one. No line, no problem. Meantime, people were fighting the crowds at Best Buy, etc.
Hope my grandson enjoys it.

[Lexinom]

Glad to hear it. Nintendo was always my favorite of the big game companies going back to the SNES vs. the Genesis days. It seems the most dedicated to quality and propriety. Their philosophy also accounts for intangibles.

The trap people fall into is assuming that more processing power equates to better games. Making a great game requires enormous skill and is as much an art as a science - and the hardware will not do that for you. I look at these games in stores occasionally just to see if they are still crap - esp. since 3-D perspective became the norm. They still are, esp. the physics. The Mario series is the single exception.

[EasySt]

Not to take anything away from the Nintendo and their Mario series at all, but I didn’t find the physics in the PS3’s "Motor Storm" or "WarHawk" to be disappointing, and with up to 12 or 32 players rocking at 720p or 1080i and using bluetooth headsets, they offer some serious fun... ;-)

You're quite correct that the extra processing power doesn't guarantee great games, but the potential is there, and it's starting to bear fruit.

[The KG9 Kid]

The only downside to the PS3 is that the games suck compared to Wii.

[corkoman]

Oh yeah, lets see the Wee pit you against an earth invasion.

IMHO Resistance is by far one of the best console games ever developed and it remains the PS3's best example of how it's tech capabilities dominate the other consoles.

[Lexinom]

A really unique idea for a game would be a first person view of a man carrying a (pistol/machine gun/flame thrower) and running around shooting things. He could have "health points" so that he could take a certain number of hits, and get health power-ups along the way.

Don't think that's ever been done before...

[af_vet_rr]

Also, a surprise to Nintendo: Wii is hugely popular with the senior citizen set. The Erickson senior living centers have more Wiis than I do

This has surprised me - we have a few places like that we visit friends in that have Wiis. My wife even likes playing it (I won't reveal her age but she is a grandmother). Not surprising at all that it's the hottest selling console of this generation. I have only see Wiis on the shelves in the past few months, and probably only four or five total.

[Malsua]

I bought one yesterday on Ebay.

It was in the wrong category and I was the only one who bid on it. The 14 game bundles are bidding upto 500-650. I got mine for 400 :). Yeah, it’s a bit more that I could buy retail but with no sales tax, shrug. Impossible to find them at any store.

[The KG9 Kid]

OK, that’s a good game.