January 2008 Archives

In a December post about the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, I may have given the impression that a Japanese student’s emotional distress is limited to that particular ritual of degradation. In fact, to undertake the study of Japanese is to undergo a thorough examination of one’s inadequacy in the eyes of a skeptical culture. My chosen envoy of that culture is an Osaka-born Japanese tutor in Queens. She’s friendly and encouraging, but she still manages to send subtle reminders that despite my efforts, I know nothing.

Now, you probably think that your reporter is projecting his own insecurity onto the Japanese as some sort of misplaced Orientalism, but take a look at my recent “required reading” list and judge for yourself. Let’s start with Second-Grade Kanji Drills. Despite the ordeal of the JLPT, I was confident that I’d passed, so at the beginning of the year I felt like cock of the proverbial walk. Seeing this confidence, “Keiko-sensei” ordered me to buy Second-Grade Kanji Drills from the Kinokuniya on 6th Ave., across from Bryant Park. (It’s a new location, and a beautiful store.) “Look in the section for kids,” she said, “Not teenagers, little kids.” She stretched out her hand and lowered it toward the floor for emphasis. Little kids.

So after putting on my best really-not-a-child-molester face and descending into the Kinokuniya kiddies’ section, I came out with the bright yellow book you see to the right, depicting a group of animals who are all laughing at me, except the billy goat, who feels nothing but pity and shame.

My tutor said that Second-Grade Kanji Drills would broaden my vocabulary by teaching new words made from characters (kanji) I already know. The book teaches vocabulary by way of example sentences, and I’ve found these examples tend to fall into one of two categories. One type of sentence will employ cultural references—folk tales, nursery rhymes, etc.—that make perfect sense to a seven-year-old Japanese kid but leave me wondering what tulip monsters have to do with the kanji for “intersection.”

The second type of sentence is maddeningly nondescript, offering little to no context. Imagine trying to learn new English words from sentences like this:

atavism, noun.
Ex: That thing is an atavism.

brobdingnagian, adjective.
Ex: “Brobdingnagian” is a word that can describe certain items.

I am stupider than most seven-year-old Japanese kids, and Second-Grade Kanji Drills has no intention of changing that.

Then there was Arsène Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes, which was an unpleasant experience mostly because I had to acquire it from BOOKOFF, a Japanese chain that shares the used-book market with the equally popular GOBOOKYOURSELF stores. New York’s BOOKOFF is located on the other side of Bryant Park from Kinokuniya (in what is rapidly becoming the city’s Japanese bookstore district), and it has all the joy of a funeral parlor that just lost its lease. Silent Japanese expats shuffle through the aisles while staffers operate a smelly shrink-wrap machine, sealing tome after tome into literary purgatory. I had to wait three minutes for somebody to abandon their shrink-wrap duties and ring me up, but the prices are cheap, so if you don’t like the service, BOOKOFF.

As for Lupin vs. Holmes, I was enthused about it because it’s written for something approximating an adult reading level, and the cover depicts a tense standoff instead of a squeezebox-playing rabbit. I gave up after a while, though, because the action in the first few pages—I’d estimate the first 200 or so—were filled with descriptions of a desk in a furniture shop. Once you learn the Japanese word for “desk” (also “bureau”) a couple dozen times, you might be ready to move on, but Arsène Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes was not.

Finally, there’s my current textbook, acquired from Amazon Japan. Amazon.co.jp is a good option if you can’t find something at the other two stores (or if, by some accident of fate, you don’t live in the New York metropolitan area).

Integrated Approach is a fine textbook, yet it, too, has some example-sentence weirdness. Don’t get me wrong, the examples are helpful and all, but they’re laced with subtext. Here’s a few from my recent studies—these are honest-to-God English translations taken verbatim from the book:

“How is your Japanese class? Difficult?”
“It is not necessarily the case that one’s Japanese improves once one goes to Japan.”
“The Japanese people are famous for working hard.”
“Wisconsin is a great place, but winter is too long.”
“Mr. Tanaka looks like a woman.”

The passive aggression is hard to miss, but take note: If I’m going down, I’m taking Mr. Tanaka and the residents of Wisconsin with me. We all are doomed to fail it.¹

Recent announcements from Apple and others have made is clear that online movie stores are now mainstream, and none too soon. It’s a modern American tragedy that we had to survive with previous options as long as we did. On one hand, you have mail-based outfits like Netflix, which compel customers to wait one, even two days to satisfy their insatiable craving for quality entertainment. On the other hand, you have video stores, which require getting up.

Now the instant gratification of the Internet allows viewers to cram Hollywood glamour down their throats until a glut of top-notch storytelling engorges their distended colons! Figuratively speaking! An active credit card and a broadband connection are all you need to make this enticing dream a reality, so the one question that remains is: Which ultra-convenient service will you go with? Here’s the breakdown.

Amazon Unbox

Launched in September 2006, Amazon Unbox was one of the first sites to give humble computer* users the best seat in the house! Simply order your film through the standard Amazon interface,** and in less than three minutes,*** your selection will be ready to play.**** Have a long commute? Take the show with you on your favorite portable player.***** And for TiVo owners, it’s easier than ever to download videos****** to your TiVo unit******* so the whole family can join in the fun. Best of all, in case of a computer crash, not only can you back up videos to DVD,******** but you can easily re-download your purchases from Your Media Library.*********

* Windows XP SP2 or Vista required. Mac and Linux not supported.

** Amazon “One-Click” must be used for Unbox purchases.

*** Broadband connection of 6 Mbps or higher required for playback in under 3 minutes. Download speeds may vary.

**** Amazon Unbox Video Player required to watch videos.

***** PlaysForSure device required for portable playback. iPod and PSP not supported.

****** TiVo playback available on select titles only.

******* Series2 or Series3 TiVo required. Not compatible with Series1 or DirecTV TiVo units. Multi-room viewing and TiVoToGo features disabled for Amazon Unbox videos.

******** DVDs not playable on standard DVD players.

********* Certain new-release movies unavailable for re-download for an unspecified period of time starting 90 days after their release date.

Movielink

This Blockbuster-owned venture pairs a Web-based* storefront with the expertise and attentive customer service you’ve come to expect from the Blockbuster franchise. Rental movies are available for 30 days after payment**, with a viewing window of 24 hours or more*** once you start watching. If you’d like an even longer window, just purchase a film for your library. Then you can download**** your movie and watch at your leisure. (Don’t forget to back up!*****) Best of all, Movielink’s Windows Media Center integration means that your movies follow you, whether it’s at another computer,****** on the road,******* or in your living room.********

* Windows 2000 or later and Movielink Manager software required. Mac and Linux not supported.

** Rental files only available for viewing while corresponding movies are still offered on Movielink website. Please note “available until” dates on each movie’s description page.

*** Viewing-time extension available on select titles only.

**** Some purchased movies require that you download them within 24 hours of your transaction.

***** DVDs not playable on standard DVD players.

****** Multi-PC playback available on select titles only.

******* Portable Media Center (PMC) devices only. Not compatible with iPod or PSP.

******** Media Center PC, Media Center Extender, and/or Digital Media Adapter set-top box required.

iTunes

Others have tried and failed; now Apple is doing web* movies the right way. You can rent or buy movies and TV shows** from any computer,*** selecting from an ever-growing library of titles. And hey, your ultra-hip iPod just got ultra-hipper because movies transfer seamlessly when you sync with iTunes.**** Pick up an Apple TV set-top box and the process gets even easier, as you can browse the same familiar iTunes Store either at your PC***** or directly through the Apple TV.****** Best of all, iTunes now offers movies in bowel-loosening high-definition.******* Your eyes won’t know what hit them!

* iTunes software required. Linux not supported.

** TV shows not available for rental; purchase only.

*** iTunes-authorized computers only. Rented movies cannot be transfered to another computer. PC playback must take place on the computer used to rent the movie.

**** iPod touch, 3rd-generation iPod nano, or iPod classic required. Earlier iPods not supported. Non-Apple devices not supported.

***** HD titles not available for rental via PC.

****** Movies rented on Apple TV cannot be transfered to other devices.

******* HD format available on select titles only. HD titles not available for purchase; rental only.

Conclusion

I can’t tell you which service is best for you because, as you can tell, each one is a star in its own special way. But whatever you decide, enjoy the show!*

* Enjoyment available on select titles only.

"The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean, the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And … the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned."¹ Here's the lineup for the next 8.22 × 10^-3 years of your stay in the universe. Spend it well.

Geek Out

Get some space. As long as you're exploring the universe, you might as well, you know, explore the universe. Tonight, The Rose Center for Earth and Space offers "One Step Beyond." The Rose PR people try to dress this up with all sorts of street cred, but the essence is "dance party in the planetarium." That's enticing, but the wallflower in me is more intrigued by the complimentary screenings of Cosmic Collisions. They offer this astronomical smash-em-up show on the dome all the time, but the drinking-age-only event is probably your only chance to see it without any screaming kids around. In other words, you don't have to feel guilty about showing up stoned. One Step Beyond goes from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., so if you want to head up after tonight's Dark Crystal screening at the Rubin Museum of Art, the festivities should be in full swing.

If you prefer to get your astrophysical fix sans thumping subwoofers and Red Bull cocktails, you might enjoy Ben Oppenheimer's "In Search of Extrasolar Planets" lecture at the Explorers Club on Monday. OK, it's technically not during the weekend, but won't you enjoy telling coworkers that you have an engagement that evening at the "Explorers Club"?

Geek In

Light it up. Preferably in lots of pretty colors. The deadline for Instructables' Get the LED Out! Speed Challenge is February 10, so there's plenty of time to to enter this contest, whose only requirements are that you come up with a project that somehow involves LEDs. If you're daunted by the complexity of electronics, don't be. One of the most famous Instructables (and one of the inspirations for this contest) was the LED Throwies how-to, which paired LEDs with a watch battery, a magnet, and some tape. I bet you can handle that.

Govern. The seminal sim game SimCity has gone through many permutations, but the most recent entry in the flagship series, SimCity 4, has proven the most enduring in terms of replay value. SC4, engrossing out of the box, also boasts an open plug-in architecture that has been essential to its longevity. Thanks to its easy extensibility, fan communities like SimTropolis have made SC4 almost perfect, not just by creating the usual building and landmark templates but also by designing patches that fine-tune city growth algorithms. Five years after its release, they continue to make improvements, such that the original game seems crippled in comparison.

Prideful Gothamites will appreciate the years of labor that graphic artist Elliot Hansen has put into New York City in SimCity. Hansen offers dozens of NYC-centric resources for download, and SimCity 4 goes for $10-20 on bargain racks, so why not take the weekend to see what your NYC looks like? It's a lot warmer than the real thing.

"Outside intelligences, exploring the Solar System with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the Sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris."¹ If you're going to spend the weekend clinging to a piece of space debris, you might as well have some fun.

Geek Out

Go to a museum. I'll admit right up front that I'm a hypocrite on this one, but my new year's resolution is to visit more of the city's museums.² You won't have to drag me to Digital Play at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. Elsewhere, the 50 Years of Helvetica exhibit at MoMA is almost ready to go away—the font is almost 51 years old, after all—so typeface nerds who haven't yet paid their respects to the "font of the 20th century" (love it or hate it) should do so soon.

Scavenge. Watson Adventures has the best approach for making a museum visit more palatable: Turn it into a competition. Bring some friends to Watson's Saturday afternoon Naked at the Met Scavenger Hunt, which transforms the stuffy Met into your personal playground. Unlike a real playground, the winner here is the team who best decodes the hunt's cryptic clues, rather than the kid who eats the most sand. (Watson has a bunch of different hunts every weekend, so check their calendar.)

Geek In

Kill Commies. Or upset their political structure, at least. The rulebook for Cold War simulation Twilight Struggle is intimidating, but don't let that deter you from taking up this clever political thriller/board game. I first played Twilight Struggle last summer and, despite the fact that it took hours to complete, I wanted to play it again immediately. It plays smooth and makes one lust for the days when "red state" meant something more dire than Bible-thumpers and tax cuts. Get the game at The Compleat Strategist (11 E. 33rd St., Manhattan) and, for the full experience, have Kinko's make a full-size copy of the custom board created by BoardGameGeek reader Ries Guillaume—his design is a marked improvement on the original.

Watch football. It's Conference Championship Sunday, the best day of the year for NFL fans who hate the overwrought pageantry of the Super Bowl. What's that? Geeks don't like sports? Don't tell the poindexters at Football Outsiders, who express their love of the game through wonkish play breakdowns and statistical charts. And my hat's off to "Davis21wylie," a Georgia Tech senior who simulates each round of the playoffs with a hacked version of Tecmo Super Bowl. ESPN can have its fancy AccuScore forecasts; I prefer the prognostication powers of a 17-year-old Nintendo game. Enjoy the Tecmo championship game videos in their 8-bit glory.

Just finished digesting all the announcements from the Steve Jobs keynote yesterday. Once again, they made the amateur mistake of not including every single feature I want. I don't understand why they never check with me first, but whatever. It's their funeral.

Take the new Apple TV. Online rentals, participation from all the big studios, HD downloads, blah blah blah. Still no FM tuner in this thing, though. I don't know who they think is going to buy a set-top box without an FM tuner. Even the AM/FM radio I got for $10 at Target comes with an FM tuner. Meanwhile, the Apple TV offers no access to our nation's lush airwaves, and it costs $230. You do the math. Leaving out the FM tuner is a deal-breaker.

Then there's Time Capsule, the network backup device. You can make regular backups of your data over a wireless network. Kind of cool, right? But when Jobs was running down the feature list in the keynote hall, you could practically hear everybody in the audience thinking, "Where the hell is the built-in tip calculator?" How this product got out the door without a built-in tip calculator is beyond me. Typical Apple arrogance, and obviously a complete deal-breaker. Cleanup on aisle three—watch out, ma'am, don't step in any broken deal. It's all over the place.

Lastly, we come to the MacBook Air. The whole idea of the Air is that it's light and thin, so they had to make some sacrifices. For instance, there's no DVD drive. I can get past that (although I don't see why they couldn't just use a DVD drive that doesn't up take any space). Ditto on the absent Ethernet port.

But then I learned that the MacBook Air doesn't even include a golf-club storage compartment. Come on. It does not get any more basic than that. I guess none of the Apple engineers have ever finished up a spreadsheet and felt the need to get in nine holes before dinner—that wouldn't be The Apple Way. Hey, Apple, if a deal breaks in the woods, does it make a sound?

So, yeah, great job, Steve. Can't wait for Macworld 2008. By the way, if the next iPhone doesn't include a Telex printer, don't expect me to buy more than two or three. Jerk.

I was chatting with Robot Village resident Nathan (mentioned in the last post of the "X-Mas X-Tacular" or whatever it was called) about a soldering kit the other day. He mentioned that many people buy the Village's solder-required robot kits to build up their skills with an iron before proceeding to mess with more delicate wares. One guy had recently purchased a soldering kit so that he could build up the confidence to hack his Wii. I told Nathan that the Sound Reversing Car was helping me toward a similar end: to repair the circuit board on my Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball machine.

I lied. Sound Reversing Cars, pinball machines—these are just intermediate steps in my larger quest. My quest to become a space pirate.

Go ahead, laugh. For whatever reason, space piracy still is not an acceptable "life goal" in our backward society. My wife is always badgering me: "Give up this stupid fantasy," "Find a real job," "Put on a clean shirt," and so forth. No. I must pursue my passion. A fortune cookie once told me to "hold on to my dreams" and that my lucky numbers are 9, 42, 37, 11, and 30. The numbers didn't work out so great, but it was a pretty delicious cookie, so I figure it had to be at least half right.

Now that I've put the idea in your head, admit it, you're kind of enamored with space piracy, too. Sailing the open space-sea, riding the space-waves, following nobody's space-rules but your space-own. If you're going to be a mate on my ship, though, you're going to need soldering skills. When the mobo on the Astro-Galleon 5000® goes on the fritz, the last thing I need is some landlubber who can't repair a cold joint on an IC. Did that last sentence make any sense? I don't know. Let's learn together and find out.

I spent the weekend assembling two soldering kits, but before I get into the details, let's review the central principles of soldering.

1. Apply heat to the metal parts you are trying to join, not to the solder.
2. Be careful with the soldering iron because it operates at a high temperature.
3. Try to keep the profanity to a minimum when you ignore #2 and burn the bejesus out of yourself.

First up was the Electronic Game Kit from Make Magazine.¹ Once all the parts were soldered in place, I turned the gizmo on to start playing. The game went like this: The chip on the circuit board got really, really hot, and the object was to avoid touching the really, really hot chip. That was it. A little more subtle and self-referential than I was expecting, but still a fun game.

After consulting the online instructions, I learned that you could also use this kit to play a game of "Simon." All you have to do is solder on the battery holder the correct way, instead of backwards. I tried the following-the-directions way, and it was fun, too.

So this kit is two games in one. Battery holder installed correctly: "Simon." Battery holder installed backward: "Captain McBurnsalot." That's an excellent value. The Make Electronic Game Kit receives four out of five space parrots.

Next came the Sound Reversing Car kit. According to the box, "Sound Reversing Car is a voice control robot car by using microphone as its detector," but that does an understatement! In fact, this small kit, it is teaching a lot of basic robots and electronic equipment of the time in order to provide the fun you and your family.

Unlike the Electronic Game, which ended up a burnt, lead-pocked landscape of electronic despair (albeit a functional one), the car robot made it through the birthing process largely injury-free. When I flicked the switch, the robot responded like a true space pirate: It did absolutely nothing. See, space pirates are a ruthless sort. They won't lift a finger unless you provide them with incentive.

Some investigation revealed that, much like a drunken space lass at a remote port of call, the switch housing was loose. The defective component steadfastly refused to complete a circuit, and lacking any booty that would tempt my insolent robot into action, I instead roughed it up by squeezing the "on" end of the switch with a pair of pliers. The car sprang to life; it has been a model citizen since then. Negative reinforcement works. Perhaps the wonky switch wasn't a defect at all, but a test for help my betterment of robots edification.

Sound Reversing Car receives 4½ out of five pictures I found Googling for pirate clichés before I got tired of this whole space-pirate conceit.

Next week: Program virtual functions in C++ as you train to become an underwater ninja!

When the authors of Wired’s Game|Life blog made the Wii’s poor third-party support their biggest disappointment of 2007, they gave voice to a misgiving I’ve felt since I got the console in late 2006. Namely: Where are all the games?

The Game|Life piece matched my general sense of the Wii’s software offerings, but I wondered if the Wii was the victim of unreasonable expectations. The console’s pre-production code name was “Revolution,” and while that moniker is gone, the spirit supposedly remains. The Wii was and is supposed to revolutionize gaming. So are the Wii’s games really that much worse than the ones available for other consoles? Or are we simply asking too much of Wii, the anointed savior of play?

To find out, I went to Metacritic, a site that compiles reviews and assigns each game a “Metascore” based on its overall critical reception. The Metascore operates on a scale from 1 to 100—for instance, the acclaimed shooter Gears of War received a 94, while lame sequel Time Crisis 4 managed only a 61. To judge games on a console-by-console basis, I loaded every Metascore for Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 games into a spreadsheet and did some basic statistical analysis.

A few notes on the data. The scores were obtained from Metacritic.com on Jan. 3, 2008. I chose Metacritic over similar sites, most notably Game Rankings, for a number of reasons: Metacritic’s data is easier to access and interpret, it uses a weighted average that reduces the influence of less reputable reviewers, and I am dazzled by the Metascores’ bright primary colors. Reviews and Metascores for downloadable games are patchy, so I excluded them from the analysis. These numbers are shrink-wrap only. If you cannot abide the fact that SpongeBob SquarePants Underpants Slam! will not contribute to the Xbox 360 results, you should stop reading now.

The obvious first step is to average the scores, and clearly the “Wii games stink” hypothesis still has legs. The gap between PS3 and Xbox is marginal, but the Wii is a significant laggard, its games averaging almost 10 points less than PS3 games.

Are a few outlying stinkers dragging down the mean? After all, the Wii has some downright bombs—Anubis II’s Metascore of 19 is easily the lowest in this survey.¹ Sorry, Wii fans: using the median score, which reduces the effect of outliers, the picture is similar:

Neither chart tells us much. Sure, the Wii gets a lower score on average, but that could be a factor of reviewer bias. Remember, the Wii is supposed to be radically innovative. The games might be entertaining in a new way that delights Joe Lunchpail but doesn’t score as well on the traditional gameplay-graphics-sound metrics of game journalism. In other words, maybe the reviewers just don’t get it, and the Wii’s overall score gets dinged as a result.

To squeeze some more info out of the data, I used a basic grading system:
Metascore of 90-100: A
80-89: B
70-79: C
60-69: D
50-59: F
0-50: F-minus

F-minus may seem harsh, but on Metacritic, scores below 50 are outlined in bright red, nature’s warning to keep your distance from a dangerously crappy game. I had Excel generate a histogram for each console to see what percentage of games fell into each grade level. Here’s the report card.

I hope the Wii has a good safety school. “Failing” scores account for a staggering one-third of the Wii library; the “D” chunk takes up another 30 percent.

The most striking difference, though, is in the “B” range. The Wii manages to eke out about the same proportion of universally acclaimed “A” games as its competitors, but the “B” bar for the Wii is just a sliver compared to the other two consoles. The Wii has its share of great games, but the field of very good games is stunningly sparse. If the Wii’s problem is that game reviewers don’t get it, they must really not be getting it.

Isolate Nintendo’s titles from the rest of the Wii pack,² and we get confirmation that third parties are indeed dragging the scores down. Given Nintendo’s reputation, it’s no shock that their titles outclass the field by far. Perhaps the only surprise is that the Big N isn’t perfect. One of its games, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, even cracks the F-minus mark.

What about the PS3 and Xbox? Judging by the charts above, the PS3 seems to have the better library. But those charts only show percentages. If you were paying close attention, alarm bells went off when you saw the big “n” number next to the Xbox 360 line. The older Xbox’s library is triple that of the PS3. Here’s what happens when we ditch percentages and look at the raw quantity of games for each platform:

Proportional numbers are interesting indicators, but they’re only relevant if you choose your games at random. I assume you’re a bit more discriminating, so all other things being equal, would you rather have the system that has 65 “B or better” games, or the one with 32? Who cares about the dregs—you’re not going to bother with them anyway. Hence the Xbox 360 looks a lot better when quantity is put in the mix.

(Note: I’m not trying to push one console over the other here, as library size is just one of many considerations that go into a purchase. For the record, I own a Wii and a PS3, but not an Xbox.)

None of the charts give an edge to the Wii, so why does the Wii outsell its competitors so handily? Two reasons—one obvious, one a little less obvious, and neither revolutionary.

1. The Wii is cheap. The Wii sells for only $250, making it the bargain choice. Most people will never take advantage of the other systems’ larger offering of quality games. They just want to play two or three fun games and get on with their lives. Thus the Wii is the best value proposition. Casual gamers are nothing new, though. At the moment, they happen to gravitate toward the affordable Wii (or the Playstation 2, which still sells very well).

2. The Wii comes with Wii Sports. The importance of Wii Sports has been obscured by credulous media reports that have lapped up the Nintendo PR line that the Wii itself is a revolutionary device that boasts world-changing innovation. It’s not about the device, though. It never is. It’s about the game.

Of the four “A” games in the Wii lineup, one is a rehash of an old Gamecube game—Resident Evil 4—and the other three are sequels to ancient Nintendo series: Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Superb, clever games all, yet in terms of gameplay, they rely on very familiar mechanics. Am I supposed to believe that the newest Zelda is so different from its predecessors that Mom and Pop are falling over themselves to play it?

Of course not. Metroid Prime 3 appeals to the same audience that bought Metroid Prime 2. The Wii demand is fueled by Wii Sports³, a game that does have broad appeal, because it truly is different from what has come before. For all the reports of senior citizens taking to the Wii—and there have been many—the seniors seem to only play one game: Wii Sports. My mother-in-law eagerly tried out Wii Sports when I brought the Wii over for Christmas, despite a longstanding aversion to technology. Most Wii owners have a story like this, and 99% of them revolve around Wii Sports.

When the Harry Potter series was exploding in popularity, well-meaning parents and educators predicted it would spark a long-term growth in adolescent reading. It didn’t. Now Nintendo acolytes are predicting that the widespread popularity of Wii Sports will spark long-term growth of the audience for games. It won’t. It’s a new market, but a very shallow one.

The new audiences clamoring to play the Wii aren’t buying into some grand concept of gaming; they’re just excited by a really cool game. Perhaps if the Wii lineup were full of truly innovative, games like Wii Sports, things would be different, but as it stands, Sports stands practically alone. The rest of the games for Wii are motion-enhanced versions of familiar tropes or just plain crap (or both).

The original Nintendo Entertainment System really did spark a revolution, so gamers are understandably eager to see it happen again. The Wii doesn’t quite qualify; the video-game medium looks much the same as it did before the Wii arrived. Still, look at the data above, and look at the real-world results. With little more than savvy pricing and a well-designed pack-in game, Nintendo made a juggernaut out of a console that ought to have landed at the rear of the pack. It’s not a revolution, but I’m guessing it’s close enough for Big N.