Product of the year

There's no contest: the product of the year for our family is the Nintendo Wii. Everyone on the family loves it, even if Cameron has a hard time with the controls. (Yes, that includes Fedora!)

How do I know this? Cameron trotted over this afternoon, in his demanding-asking voice, "Wii bowling? Play Wii bowling!"

The Wii is riding some powerful trends into millions of living rooms around the globe:

• Simplicity over complexity: Wii graphics are cartoonish compared to the photo-realism of the PlayStation 3. But with simple, compelling gameplay and the breakthrough Wii-mote, people find the graphics good enough.
  
• Just like MP3s beat Super Audio CDs and the DVD-Audio.
• Anyone outside of Nerdville even remember those formats?
• Turns out people valued convenience and portability over fidelity.
• Breakthrough user experience: The Wii-mote is the iPod of video gaming. It demonstrates how a breakthrough user experience can create a huge market opportunity. (And I'm not just saying this as a user interface professional.)
  
• Social interactivity. The Wii brings people together, a phenomenon that the Wii ecosystem just groks. Watch any ad for a Wii product or Wii game and it'll show a group of playing having a blast -- as opposed to eye-popping gameplay.
• Even grandparents like it. I'm not sure how explicitly the Wii designers knew this was going to be true, but even my parents love the Wii -- perfect opportunity for Nintendo as the population grays.
• Physical engagement. I'm sure the Wii designers were all over this trend, but now moms around the globe don't need to nag kids to go outside to get some exercise. You can easily work up a sweat playing any of the Wii games, especially the boxing mini-game in Wii Sports!
  

Happy birthday, Wii! Cake courtesy of Henry S over at Engadget.