Nintendo: New console isn't just for geeks

Nintendo wants you to be its friend.

With a marketing campaign geared toward a broad demographic of families and non-gamers, the company hopes to eschew the common conception of the solitary, non-social geek playing alone in his isolated dorm room.

With a price tag of a mere $250, the company seems to want not only a bigger crowd, but a hipper one as well.

So far, the plan seems to have worked. With the release of its system last November, the company has seen its net income skyrocket to nearly $792 million.

With so much hype going around, it would seem reasonable to assume that those at Penn are playing Nintendo's new system.

"At first, I had heard a lot about it," said Hitesh Tolani, a Dental student and graduate advisor in Ware College House who sometimes played with his residents during the school year, in an e-mail interview. "If I was stressed out or just wanted to clear my mind, I went over and Wii-ed."

This seems like the kind of attention Nintendo was looking for.

Rather than advertising darker games that find players soaked in blood or battling zombies, Nintendo's selling-point is with fun-themed games that utilize the system's wireless "Wiimote," such as the game "Wii Sports" that comes with the system.

"I played once during Spring Fling," said Pam Orezco, a rising Nursing and Wharton senior. While Orezco only played Wii Sports boxing and tennis games with her friends, in an e-mail interview she described the experience as "a lot of fun."

Despite some student's satisfaction with the system, others feel disappointed. Rising College senior Spencer Miller, who bought the system at its release, said that he was mislead by Nintendo's marketing. While the motion sensing controls seemed "so cool" on commercials, Miller "wanted to feel like everything [he] did would directly translate on-screen, which it doesn't." Now, Miller seldom plays. "I would rather waste my time on the Internet instead of playing video games."

And despite Nintendo's efforts to portray its gamers as more sociable, some are still wary of the stereotype of the avid gamer.

"I've met people who are absolutely addicted to video games," said Orezco.

"I consider those people to be unhealthy," she added. "People who play video games a lot use video games to distract themselves from the real world."

Some are outright skeptical of all video games. "I don't play Wii. Video games are for children and dudes who can't get laid," said Jim Saksa, a rising College senior.

On a campus where success is often majored in test scores rather than high scores, Saksa might not be alone in his opinion.

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