I was trolling around YouTube and came upon three gaming commercials – one vintage ad for the Atari VCS 2600 (circa 1977), one current ad for the Wii and one new-ish ad for the PS3. After viewing them it hit me like a brick, and in a more intuitive way then I’ve written about previously: Nintendo has captured the imagination of families and casual gamers in a way not seen since Atari stormed onto the family entertainment scene back in the 1970s. Atari was and Nintendo (both the Wii and the DS) is all about community, ease of play and, most importantly, fun. And the ads clearly show this.
For all the crap I dish out to Sony regarding the PS3 it really is unfair. I finally admit it. People are right when they say the two consoles don’t really compete. PS3 gets the “hardcore” gamers left over from Xbox 360, and the Wii gets everybody else. As a supporter of Nintendo, I’m pretty content with that. And yes, you can “support” a corporation. You say you can’t? Hasn’t anyone ever had a favorite baseball team? Same thing.