Don’t Blame the Genders, Blame the Console!

In our recent tutorial for week 3, we looked at how gender’s play a part in whether or not they participate in video games. Luke said something along the lines of “… boys will be involved in more immersive games whereas females are more into browser based games that they can dip in and out of”. While that much is true, I also believe it is the game console manufacturers who decide which gender(s) to target.

In particular is the Nintendo Wii, if we look at the consoles & its controllers’ design and colour scheme we can say that it’s quite gender neutral. Compare this to the Playstation 1, 2 & 3 or Xbox & Xbox 360, their consoles are often black, grey or grey-ish white and sleek with a futuristic-ish design. Even the controllers are loaded with buttons that require time to learn all the functionalities possible for the controller and for each game. In contrast, the Wii is a simple white, the console itself is rather simple looking, small and compact and the controller looks more like a remote, an already well established household object.

The gameplay on the Wii is also quite natural itself, rather than learning button combinations, the Wii opts for physical movements that are easy to pick up and learn. And the Wii taps into all of these facts to market itself. Look at TV ads for Playstation or Xbox, they are generally quite high-end looking and flashy, the Wii ads are of people just playing with the Wii in a social context.
It's because of all this that the Wii attracts more female gamers than any other console. The actual content of the games also help to break down this barrier to entry for potential and current female gamers with games that are violent for those females who like it and for male audiences and games that are simple, perhaps with cute graphics, realistic in the sense that it might be something they like to do/play (eg: Tennis).

So whilst we might generalize that females just aren’t into video games, it’s more the console manufacturers and their marketers which are pointing the consoles more at the male gender. If Sony or Microsoft started designing their consoles at females in terms of console and controller design, the types of games available and the price of the console itself, the amount of females participating in video games on those consoles may increase also.