An interesting article, but there is an important point that I don't think it addresses as well as it ought to. > Gathering people in front of a big screen in

An interesting article, but there is an important point that I don't think it addresses as well as it ought to. > Gathering people in front of a big screen in a living room to play together is an experience that smartphones can't match. True. Wii games are something people do together. With all the ways we twist the word "social" today, it can be easy to forget that (say) Facebook is not really social in the way that two people playing Mario Kart on a Wii in the same room is. Facebook is you staring at your own screen. The same goes for many multiplayer games. The Wii is different. But the Wii-U is not different. Everyone gets a handheld screen. Of course there is the big screen that everyone can look at, but does anyone actually do that? In the Wii-U commercials, all those excited, happy people are constantly glancing from the screen they are holding to the big screen and back. Obviously, the actors were told to do that; I doubt too many real people do it. That changes things greatly. People playing a Wii game in the same room are together. People playing a Wii-U game in the same room are not.