OH, THE irony. In a week that the media became hysterical about kids not getting enough exercise because they stayed inside and played video games, we learnt the year’s best-selling game was Wii Fit – a series of fun exercises for the whole family. So the problem was the solution.

Let’s not be glib. Wii Fit (pronounced "we fit") may have sold a couple of hundred thousand copies, but that’s a drop in the ocean of games that exercise the thumbs alone. Game sales are up 40 per cent on last year, in other words, after Christmas, Australians will have bought 22 million of them – that’s on top of the fortune we’ve spent for the latest consoles to play them – Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the handheld Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable.

Many non-players assume that even if games are not the sole cause of childhood obesity, they still turn our teenagers into zombies and criminals. Let’s analyse the chart for the year so far, supplied by the research organisation GfK Australia:

Best selling games of 2008: 1) Wii Fit; 2) Wii Play; Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 27% [?]

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