Broadening the world of gaming out to the people who don’t already know the joys of gaming has been a much talked about topic over the past year and change. A gigantic catalyst of this most definitely is the Nintendo Wii. Sadly, this isn’t a Xbox 360 only world, but if you thought it was get over it!

As Xbox 360 owners, users, or enthusiast as some would say, we can’t deny the fact that Nintendo has been “on fire”. Why? Mainly, because of the choice phrase that to many seem to use, “Casual Gaming”. What is casual gaming anyway? Isn’t playing a video game, playing a video game? Why is it that non gamers are willing to go out of there way to find a understocked Wii, versus what we all love here, the Xbox 360?

Is it the controller? Why is it that the Wii makes gaming all of a sudden so approachable to non gamers, when ultimately the games are relatively the same as they have always been? The Wii-mote minus the split in two control method, is essentially the same as every other controller out there, so why is the Wii deemed easier to pick up and play? Motion control gives a different feeling no doubt, but is it really all that different from just pushing a analog nub in a direction versus waving the controller itself to simulate the same thing? If you’ve been around gaming long enough and watched a non gamer try to play a game, you have almost certainly seen them trying to moving there on screen counterpart by moving the controller itself as if it was going to help. Seeing that alone has to make you wonder, is it really that simple?

The Xbox brand itself is steep in the association of “hardcore” gaming with it’s PC converts and back again association. Who decided that this was the case, who knows, but the Nintendo Wii has caught up in total console sales rather quickly thanks to “casual gaming”. In what has taken nearly 2 years for the 360, the Nintendo Wii has pretty much if not already caught up to the 360 in console sales. Of course, consoles sales themselves aren’t everything, but according to just gamers that’s all that seems to matter. Then again, console sales matter very much, but software sales are what determines a platforms successfulness.

Naturally, without making this an argument about Xbox 360 versus Nintendo Wii, this will be about casual gaming in general and it’s appeal to certain platforms versus another. Is this so called “casual gaming” really any different for and Xbox 360 owner or Nintendo Wii owner. Why should a casual gamer pickup a Wii and not a Xbox 360.

Over the course of writing this, I just so happen to be listening to Electronic Gaming Monthly’s latest (9-03-07) EGM Live podcast. In there second segment, Jennifer Tsao and Shane Bettenhausen talked to what they term an “alpha mom”. In a shock to me, Shane (known PlayStation Fanboy) began to ask her a few fantastic questions pertaining to whether or not she would buy a Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Knowing that this woman that they interviewed was given a Wii by Nintendo, she admittedly stated that she doesn’t have or would ever have an interest in ever buying a Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Shane tried to get her to elaborate on her stance, but she continued to only say that she just wouldn’t.

It was just a coincidence that a interview like this happened when it did, but it goes hand in hand with what I was already writing about. I plan to tackle a few of the questions posed above in subsequent posts after this one. As mentioned in the EGM Live interview, is casual gaming or better yet, are casual gamers destroying what enthusiast gamers currently know as the gaming industry?

Part 2 coming soon…..

-William “thewilleffect” Bell-