As a gamer of 32 years, you would expect me to have a reasonably active brain. Well thanks to Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo Wii it seems that I have been training only a few parts of my brain. And thanks to that same game I am training the parts I have been neglecting for years since I left school. And yeah, it even hurts for real when you push your brain into new grounds. I never expected that a game would ever give me such a fresh feeling in my head but it really does. It helps me to think and react faster, and it feels incredibly good!

But this is getting even stranger! Not only do I feel this, but now my wife, mother, sister and even my wife's parents feel it! And by god, they also totally love it! What is going on here? People who never used to play games suddenly love it? As long as I have been in and around the games industry I have never seen this happen, at least not to me and people I know. First it was Wii Sports and now this; it is incredible what Nintendo does, they move you and now they make us smarter too.

Now I see another big change in my surroundings. Some gamers have started to drop their Wii Remotes and have begun playing PC and 360 games. So it seems Nintendo is gaining new grounds but losing the old ones. Are some gamers afraid of the new games? Or do they find or think they are boring?

Well, my friends say it isn't interesting enough because of the lack of games they know such as Metroid, Mario, Fire Emblem, F-Zero, Mario Kart and a great Zelda (Twilight Princess wasn't great enough?).

Is it that some gamers just need to expand their grey matter like I did in order to experience the true magic that the Wii is offering? Or is Nintendo's strategy, including the Brain Training and Wii Sports like games, just too much (or too little) for these gamers to handle?

Well in my point of view, they both need to change a bit. Not much but just a bit of fine tuning, I guess. Gamers should open up more and look past the low-resolution graphics and (as they say) "kiddy graphics". We don't play games to view a great time, we play games to have a great time! Fantastically innovative games lie beneath new IPs such as Zack and Wiki, which tend to be overlooked a lot by so-called 'hardcore gamers'.

And Nintendo should work harder to keep more of a balance between 'casual' and 'hardcore' games to keep all demographics happy. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, whilst they could be viewed as games for hardcore gamers, have certain aspects and traits which help them appeal to all of the Wii market. This is a contrast to Wii Sports and Big Brain Academy, which tend to be pushed at the casual demographic. If this balance can be found, then this way both old and new gamers alike can enjoy the gaming world of Nintendo. For me� I am starting to enjoy games again more and more thanks to the fresh air that Nintendo has given me!