I had the greatest Wii moment this past friday. So the day after Thanksgiving, I take my Wii into work.
Its a big character department so we all get lots of breaks and lots of time to do what ever. I hook it up early in the morning, and insert Wii Sports, and its not being read. The same happens with Zelda, and Rayman, and oh boy im getting very worried and embarrased. I leave the machine hooked up and return after my first set, and realize I was putting the discs backwards. You could imagine the relief I felt after I figured it out.
Anyway fast forward to the important part. One guy brings his 360 in 5 days a week, I kid you not. And he just hooks it up to one of our tv's. The gamers, gather around and watch him, always commenting on how cool it looks and so on and so forth. But if someone doesn't play games, they will not have any interest towards his 360. And I have been watching this day in and day out since the 360 came out. His 360 was the only one I think on the planet that didn't break. So I watch people and how they experience the 360 and how they react to it. With that I have been waiting a long long time to see how my co-workers would react to the Wii.
I so wish I had a camera or something, for video. You would not believe how nuts they went over it. My 50+ year old friend is a big tennis player and could not get over wii sports. Well as a matter of fact, Wii sports is what got everyone hooked. All I could really do was show them fishing in Zelda, I didnt want to confuse or bore them with traveling and exploring(especialy since I was lost at that time in the game). My friends were standing up to play, and just could not stop laughing about how the ingame characters were performing the same motions that they were. I mean we have alot of people that run in and out of our breakroom, and everyone but the hard core gamers were impressed. Most of the hardcore guys are pure Sony, and Microsoft fans. They except Nintendo, but it will always be a distant 3rd to them.
At the start of our daily meeting, our manager said "Befor I start, everyone should at least try Matthew's amazing new video game machine." Someone asked what it was, and briefly I got up and explained it and the price, and I sware everyone went "Is that all!?" well one supervisor said "I can't believe 250 is cheap now'a days."
The Wii defenitly can draw in the nongamer, It was almost like everyone was under Nintendo's spell. It really was amazing to sit back and watch how these people reacted. Especialy the difference in gamers VS nongamers.
Oh and at least 15 people said they were getting one that day.