Elderly gamers and Nintendo Wii
My colleague Mike Liebhold points out a DailyTech article about Nintendo going after the elder gamer market-- or more precisely, creating a new video gaming market:
The Wii’s innovative controller design has opened up video gaming to a previously untapped market—non-gamers.
The marketing minds behind Nintendo looked beyond the traditional gamer mediums and advertised its innovations at targets as far from gaming as you can imagine, such as retirees....
The marketing minds behind Nintendo looked beyond the traditional gamer mediums and advertised its innovations at targets as far from gaming as you can imagine, such as retirees. Nintendo even went against the current and took the Wii to an AARP convention....
Nintendo’s efforts seemed to have paid off. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Wii is now the latest rage at the Sedgebrook retirement community in Lincolnshire, where the average age is 77. In particular, the Wii Bowling component of Wii Sports has members of the retirement community hooked on playing the Wii installed inside the Sedgebrooks’s clubhouse lounge.
From the Chicago Tribune story:
"I've never been into video games," said 72-year-old Flora Dierbach last week as her husband took a twirl with the Nintendo Wii's bowling game. "But this is addictive."
Dierbach said residents love the Wii set up in the clubhouse lounge.
"They come in after dinner and play," she said. "Sometimes, on Saturday afternoons, their grandkids come play with them.
"A lot of grandparents are being taught by their grandkids. But, now, some grandparents are instead teaching their grandkids."
This shouldn't be much of a surprise. A couple years ago, Wired Magazine had an article on the popularity of online chess, checkers, and other non-alien destruction / non-first-person shooter / non-multiplayer smackdown among the elderly. For many of the people in that piece, the appeal of those games was the opportunity they afforded to interact with other people: the chess program on your computer is probably a lot more challenging than your nephew, but, well, it's just a machine.
It's no coincidence, as the Marxists used to say, that the Tribune article talks about a bowling tournament and grandparents playing with their grandchildren. In both cases, the video game isn't something that keeps people in their rooms. In the context of the retirement home, the point of the Wii isn't just to play, but to play with others. As always, other people are the killer app.
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