Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
While Microsoft tries to rescue the flagging image of the unreliable Xbox 360 with Halo 3 and Sony tries to boost the less than inspiring start to its PS3 sales campaign with online gaming experiences, Nintendo has once again captured the attention of audiences with the Wii console at E3. This time - believe it or not - it's all about fitness.
One would not normally associate fitness with video gaming but then
again most of us laughed when Nintendo Revolution transmogrified (is
that a word?) into Wii.
Full marks to Nintendo because as far as its think tank is concerned
the fat and lazy gamer with overdeveloped thumb muscles has had his
day. And I say "his" because the stats tell us there haven't been too many femme fatale Call of Duty, Halo or GTA gamers of late.
This is of course quite understandable. Without trying to sound like a
total mysoginist, the majority of women I know aren't into shooting,
slashing and disembowelling their enemies.
Give them a game that will help them lose unwanted flab and firm up
their abs, however, and that's a different story. Enter WiiFit.
What it may lack in raw gaming processing power, Nintendo more than
makes up for with innovation and marketing. Wiifit is all about gaming
without guilt. Brilliant! In fact, that's what Wii Sports is about -
getting off the armchair and onto your feet.
WiiFit actually goes a step further than Wii Sports, it actually tries
to approach the level of an exercise program, complete with the vital
statistics tracking that you would normally consign to a personal
trainer. Now that's innovation!
As a result of all this Wii "gaming fitness", Nintendo is claiming an
entire new demographic of gamer, including a lot more women who would
not normally stop to look twice at a video games console.
But what of the traditional gamers - the 100 million or so souls who
bought PS2 and were proud to call themselves lounge lizards? Did some
of them defect to Xbox 360 while awaiting the arrival of PS3? Maybe.
Did others decide to turn over a new leaf and lose unwanted pounds with
the Wii? Perhaps. Or have most of them waited until PS3 came down to a
reasonable price and more games came onto the market?
I won't say what I think - I'll just get into trouble with the "fanpersons".
David Bass
| For the fourth year in a row, IDC has placed content security provider Websense (NASDAQ: WBSN) at the top of the IDC Worldwide Web Security 2011 –…
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