Nintendo's Wii a surprise hit with seniors

By Christian Science Monitor

Six seniors at the Sedgebrook retirement community gathered in the lounge after dinner last year as the holiday season was getting under way. The center's residents were an unlikely test audience for the season's hottest toys. The plan: determine which toys their grandchildren might like.

The assumption was that they'd give their grandchildren the toys they approved. But it didn't quite turn out that way. The Nintendo Wii was so popular that the residents clamored for their own.

Today, each of the Erickson chain's retirement communities, including Sedgebrook, outside Chicago, owns at least one Wii.

Other retirement communities and municipal senior centers in recent months have followed, many using wellness grants and public funds to pay for the video-game system. The Wii retails for about $250.

Proponents say the Wii offers a welcome reprieve from a sedentary lifestyle and boosts hand-eye coordination among the over-60 set in a way that bingo and mah-jongg can't.

But it can be a challenge to get residents comfortable with the video games. Many retirement communities are encouraging hesitant seniors with tournaments, trophies and cash prizes. Some centers are placing their Wiis in high-traffic areas where seniors congregate or, for the bashful, behind a movable privacy screen.

Nintendo (NTDOY, news, msgs) scrambled to tap this demographic.

Nintendo started pursuing seniors in 2006 with the launch of its Nintendo DS "Brain Age" game, which the company says stimulates cognitive abilities. The idea to reach out to seniors originated in Japan, where the population is aging more rapidly than in the United States, says George Harrison, senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications with Nintendo of America. "We had to approach people who were not previously video-gamers," he says.

Nintendo found that two things had kept seniors from playing video games. First, the games were too complicated. "The other thing was that there really weren't games for these people," Harrison says. That's where the easy-to-use Wii comes in, he says.

Twenty-four percent of Americans over age 50 played video games in 2007, up from 9% in 1999, according to the Entertainment Software Association. People age 55 and older account for less than 10% of Nintendo hardware sales. That's a slight increase from about four years ago, when the previous generation of game consoles peaked, Harrison says. Seniors have "opened up the aperture of people who previously would've not considered themselves to be gamers," he says.

Nintendo has been bolstering its senior-friendly image, partnering with retirement communities, including Erickson, which has received 15 free Wiis.

Continued: Bowling, the hands-down favorite

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