Videogames at School = Bad News Bears

By Jacob Reses '13

Last year, I schlepped my Xbox 360 with me to school, figuring that I might turn it on occasionally for a round of Call of Duty with friends from home over Xbox Live. By the end of the year, though, I’d barely gotten any use out of the thing. It served as little more than an extra DVD player in my quad’s common room.
Given that the Xbox seemed to have had no impact on my productivity, I figured that I’d be safe bringing along my Wii this year. No dice. Word to the wise: If you want to get any work done here, it’s a bad idea to have easy access to pick-up-and-play Nintendo games. Unlike a lot of games on other platforms, which ostensibly demand longer play sessions, Nintendo’s efforts are deceptive time sinks. You go in thinking that you’re going to play one four minute level of Mario Bros. or one round of Wii Sports, and before you know it, you’ve been spending hours in front of the TV, having moved on to Mario Kart and Smash Bros.

I’ve been too busy for the last two weeks to allow myself to indulge too much, but now I’ve got my roommates hooked. One of them has spent ten hours and nine minutes on the machine in the last two days according to the Wii’s message board, and that figure is sure to go up before tomorrow.

Please, do yourselves a favor. Don’t ask for a Wii this holiday season. It’ll only cause you pain and suffering (and lost sleep). Get a 360 instead.