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Wii + reitirement home = Wiitirement home
An entire retirement home full of elderly people passing their free time in heated Wii competitions. It may sound like a Nintendo press release, but it's actually a Chicago Tribune article about the Sedgebrook retirement home in Lincolnshire, where Wii Sports Bowling is taking the living community by storm. The game is so popular among the residents that grandparents are teaching their grandkids how to play and a 20 person tournament took place over the weekend. Sure beats watching Matlock reruns all day. Previously: Wii appeals to the elderly
Growing old and bored with video games
Game companies are worried about gamers growing up and growing bored said the Wall Street Journal earlier this week (available only through subscription). A study of "lapsed console gamers" by consulting and research firm Frank N. Magid Associates shows where gamers lose the faith. The first drop occurs as males enter the 18-34 demo, where those playing console games once a week drops from 78 percent (12-17 year-olds) to 42 percent. At 35-44 the playing drops to 24 percent.Obviously, the reason for this is that stupid thing called life getting in the way. It's not that gamers want to stop, it's just that jobs, school, relationships and babies get in the way. 48 percent say they leave because they get too busy and 40 percent say they simply got bored (no further data there, but that's worth looking into). There is also talk about how controllers have gotten too complicated, which Nintendo is currently attempting to tackle through the Wii. We'll have to wait and see how the Wii control concept plays out in the long run. The article loses steam toward the end and saves itself by bringing up the fact that although older gamers may not be on consoles anymore, they probably spend 40+ hours in front of a computer and the "casual games" market isn't hurting from that fact one bit. The whole article is a little silly in its statement of the obvious: As we age, free time dries up. We don't watch as many movies (film industry), we don't go to as many concerts (music industry) and we don't play as many games. But the human race continues to breed and multiply, the next generation will replace us and pick up the consumer slack. We also have an issue with this "problem" being at all true to begin with because the average age of gamers, according to the ESA, continues to go up.
Oops! Brain training doesn't help aging brains
In a blow to Nintendo's hopes that their Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day title for the Nintendo DS would sell bajillions of copies to aging boomers who want to halt the rate at which their brains slip into senility, the Wall Street Journal's Science Journal debunks the idea that brain training of any sort can help slow the rate of mental decline. The Journal quotes a recent study by University of Virginia’s Timothy Salthouse that found "little scientific evidence that engagement in mentally stimulating activities alters the rate of mental aging" calling the belief "more of an optimistic hope than an empirical reality." Furthermore, "Even in the most mentally engaged elderly -- chess experts, professors, doctors -- mental function declines as steeply as in people to whom mental exercise means choosing which TV show to watch," Sharon Begley -- the author of the piece -- writes. The news isn't all bad, though. Even though rigorous training fails to halt the rate of decline of our wetware, trained brains do perform trained tasks better, according to the Journal. If, for instance, you were to regularly practice math, you'd be faster with numbers than those who haven't been practicing. Later this week, Begley will examine which types of training provides boosts brains best. We'll be sure to follow up then.
