ON NINTENDO Wii MAINSTREAM POPULARITY

AND THE WINNER IS...

Catching up on some Techmeme reading, I wasn't surprised to read anecdotal reports on folks trying to exchange their Sony Playstation 3s for Nintendo Wii boxes (see posts by GigaGamez and GigaOm here, no relation).

It certainly passed the "mainstream people awareness test" in our Christmas morning gift discussion in Indiana, Pennsylvania, as the most wished for and discussed technology product.  And this was unprovoked by me of course, since that would technologically taint this mainstream people sample.

In fact, we had instances of Wii games being presented as gifts even though the receiver did not yet have a Wii console in hand yet.  The rationale according to the giver (sister-in-law Beth) was that she wanted him to be ready to play when he did get a Wii console after the shortage passed in a few months.

By contrast, Apple's iPod was barely mentioned through the holiday, other than a sighting of an Apple Shuffle gift in one isolated incident.

It's all anecdotal to be sure, but all portend good things for Nintendo in 2007.

What technology product and/or service dominated your Christmas morning discussion?