Microsoft Japan: We can learn from Wii

Michael Kanellos of CNET blogs about some interesting Microsoft comments regarding the Wii and Xbox 360: Microsoft for years has been trying to bring more consumers intocomputer gaming, but Nintendo was the company that figured out how todo it, said Yasutoshi Magara, managing director of Microsoft Japan. The Xbox 360, Magara said, was designed mostly with a relatively well-defined demographic in mind, namely 18- to 30-year-old males into networking games. "They (the console developers at Microsoft) start there," he said. By contrast, Nintendo, with the launch of its Wii motion-sensing console, aimed for the family and developed games that kids and parents might play together. "It was a question of whether that would be accepted," he said. "It was very well accepted." Fair enough. The thing I don't understand, however, is that the 360 actually has a huge library of Xbox Live Arcade games that are quite definitely aimed at the casual gaming crowd. In fact, arguably, casual gamers will still have a better (and less expensive, from a game perspective) experience on the 360 than they will on the Wii. I guess the thing the Wii has going for it, in that sense, is that it's cute out of the box. The controller thing is clearly attractive to non-gamers. But that's like complementing a horror movie for not being very scary, from what I can tell. Sort of misses the point. But hey, that's how I feel about the Wii. Oh well.