Video Games: Helping make our minds sharper

There are 183 million gamers just in the United States. Of that 183 million 5 million of them are to be considered “extreme gamers” who game an average of 45 hours a week.  A typical gamer usually puts in an hour or two a day.  Just last year video games too in $15.5 billion in revenue.

Many people that speculate that video games make you loose brain cells, that playing violent video games is a big risk for later physically aggressive behavior, along with the risk of attention problems (such as ADD or ADHD).

This is NOT your brain on video games

In recent research studies they have shown that individuals who are expert gamers usually outperform novices in basic measures such as attention and perception.

In other studies, research had shown that people who played violent or action packed video games had faster reaction times than individuals who don’t play video games.  Most action games also known as “shooter game” take the gamer through mazes all the while not knowing when or where the villain will show.  Scientists found that gamers who play a lot of action packed games are better at making quick and accurate decisions. 

Researcher Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Rochester in New York states that “Our brains constantly perform probabilistic inferences; for instance as you drive along and detect some unexpected moving object on the right side of the road, say a motorcycle, your brain will compute how likely it is that you are on a collision path with that motorcycle, and then infer from this probability whether you need to steer left or not. This kind of inference is used each time we make a decision. Action video games give an edge by improving this inference process.” 

(Taken from http://www.livescience.com/health/video-games-improve-decision-making-100913.html)

According to BBC News: These are the parts of your brain that
you use when you play video games

A major point that a lot of consumers forget about is that video game companies are also making and selling things to try to promote and gain the attention from other forms of gamers. These types of games are known as card or puzzle games. In short they try to help your memory function.  Users are able to play these games such as Jeopardy, Word Master, Picross 3D, Brain Age, and much more on all types of gaming systems, such as Xbox, Wii, Nintendo DS, PS3, PSP, etc. 

             (Taken from YouTube: X360 Kinect HD video game trailer, shows game that is made for all ages)

Older generations are even picking up video games because they want to help them memory function, and fight Alzheimer’s along with other memory loss diseases. When the Wii first came out Nintendo was recommending it for people of all ages from 3 to 100.  Several Wii’s were placed in nursing homes and assisted living spaces in order to get them up and moving to keep them functional and not bedridden. 

Nintendo 3DS-Jumping on the bandwagon

Technology, reminds me of the space race.  What will be the next hot item of the year on everybody’s wish list? It’s constantly a race, but in reality it is who can make the technology work for what people want as well as who can market the product/brand the best.

For example Nintendo announced that their new device would incorporate 3-D. This device allows the game to be displayed in a 3-D video without the need for glasses or any other special device for you to see the picture. (photo of the gaming device on right)

Nintendo is calling this new gaming system the 3DS.  This gaming system is an upgraded version on the current DS and DS Lite, but with a twist. 3DS plans on being on store shelves in the US, late March, and users can purchase it for $249. By late June, over 30 games will be available for users to play on the 3DS.

It can easily fit into your pocket; it is the size of the DS Lite gaming device that is currently on store shelves. The device contains two screens; a 3-D screen and a touch screen. Users are able to change the depth of the 3-D display so that they don’t have to strain their eyes.

(Video courtesy of YouTube; is an example of the promo that they are currently using to show off the amazing 3-D effects.)

Personally I think it is good that technology is expanding more and more, however I do think that it is kind of ridiculous that every year something new or some new feature on a product comes on that new model.  It is funny to see how many people drop their current model product to go and purchase the next newer model.  The thing that does it is how the company markets the product.  If you don’t market the product correctly then the product won’t get sold, as much. For example Apple comes out with new iPods every year. What ones do they market the most for the newest one there is the iTouch and the iNano.  You really don’t see much marketing for the iClassic or the iShuffle. Hence why they don’t sell as many of them.

One thing that Nintendo has going for them at the moment is the fact that 3-D movies are big.  Every movie that is made now has some sort of 3-D version.  The next thing that came out is the option to purchase 3-D televisions.  3-D is huge right now so what did Nintendo do, well they are tapping that source and keeping it going.  3-D games, what better way to market than just getting on the 3-D bandwagon and letting it ride.