Nintendo's Wii For Women

MAXINE Brooks confesses she never normally plays computer games, professing to find them "boring".



But after yesterday's launch of Nintendo's Wii console, the 25-year-old beauty therapist is reconsidering her view of virtual games - an entertainment form traditionally designed for and played by young men.

In front of a wide screen, Maxine, from Stockbridge, in Edinburgh spent several minutes pummelling a virtual opponent using a wireless wand in her hand.

"You could work up a sweat doing this", she said. "I would normally feel guilty lazing about just sitting there playing a computer game."

Maxine got her first taste of Wii - the name is Japanese for "everybody" - in the Gamestation store in Princes Street, as the much-hyped console went on sale in the UK.

She is typical of the kind of customer the Japanese games giant wants to attract. Nintendo has purposefully designed the game to be tactile, spatial and social - qualities it believes will appeal to women. It has advertised the Wii across women's titles including Prima, Glamour, New Woman, Closer and Heat as a communal fun activity - a world away, it suggests, from the closeted world of the PlayStation or Xbox fanatic.

The games it comes with - tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing - involve standing and moving rather than the classic couch-potato position.

Rob Lowe, Nintendo's UK product manager for home consoles, said: "The large majority of women don't play games at the moment, so we designed the controller so anyone can pick it up and play it; they don't have to learn 12 different button combinations and spend ten hours trying to immerse themselves in the game. We think women will play the Wii for shorter bursts of time and feel they have exercised a bit."

Keen gamer Teri Krueger has both the rival PlayStation and Xbox consoles at her Edinburgh home. The 18-year-old, who also has a vintage 1999 Gameboy Colour console, spends three hours a night on various games. Teri, from Edinburgh, went several rounds in the digital boxing ring and thought the Wii format might appeal even to those reared on stationary consoles. "It is more social and you don't sit there by yourself," she said.

Caron Stoker, a mother of two from central Edinburgh, confessed she had no interest in computer games - although she bought them for her sons, aged ten and 13. However, several strikes in the cyber bowling alley and she was warming to the idea.

Scots psychologist Dr Andrina McCormack said: "Nintendo are probably right in trying to target women with a game that is active, because women tend to do more practical things."

However, she added: " The idea of making this game 'woman-friendly' by making the controls more simple is a bit insulting."
Machines sell out in 12 hours

NINTENDO said 50,000 Wii consoles had been sold in the UK within 12 hours of the midnight launch on Thursday.>