Nintendo Wii – a hope for dads who want to play video games

Nintendo’s Wii is really kicking ass. I was at my dentist the other day and he told me that he bought one for his family. Now people who I never thought would play video games are buying Wii. It’s amazing how quickly things can change in the game industry.

I used to play a lot of video games, but no longer do, because I now have a daughter. Every now and then I hear about fathers who play video games, and I wonder how they do it. (Are they divorced? Or did they marry an angel?) Playing video games takes a lot of time and concentration. When you have a kid, your time gets severely fragmented at home. Every 5 minutes, either your kid or your wife wants something from you, which is not a situation conducive to playing video games. (When I was single, I used to play Gran Turismo nonstop over whole weekends, stopping only to eat and sleep.)

I recently bought SONY’s PSP, explaining to my wife that I need it to play my portfolio to my clients (I’m a motion graphics designer), but my true motive was to play Grand Theft Auto with my friends. I’m not sure what I was thinking; I didn’t even get around to buying the actual game. My PSP has never played any games. If I know that I’m just going to get interrupted in 5 minutes, why bother? If you are a father who plays video games, let me know how you do it.

If my wife would play video games also, she would have to let me play as well. But the problem is that there is nothing that she would want to play. But that could change with Wii. I might go pick one up.

On a different note: I found a bunch of people on YouTube trying to play the theme song to Super Mario on their guitars. I guess it’s very difficult because the song was written for a computer; so it does not come naturally to any normal instruments. I like how everyone has different solutions. The Korean guy is by far the best, but even he misses a lot of notes.