Just yesterday, Microsoft had revealed their black crusader, the Xbox 360 Elite, which stirred the Xbox 360 community for its slick look and roomy 120 GB hard drive storage. While the Xbox 360 is now going back to the old-school black motif, like most PC Banzai Runner rigs (minus all the bells and whistles) and the PlayStation 3 (need we say the Atari Jaguar and the Sega Genesis, too?), Microsoft did deal a below-the-belt blow to current top selling Nintendo Wii.

John Rodman, Group Product Manager for the Xbox and Xbox Live, said, "We don’t feel like the Wii customer and the Xbox customer are the same thing. We think that as soon as the Wii customer turns 14 they want something else." He is entitled to his own opinion, but he hasn't even considered the two other demographics the Wii has touched.

The aged and the female parts of the incidental gamer market have also been tapped into by the fun, non-gamer friendly Wii. Retirement homes have equipped their entertainment centers with Nintendo's next-gen platform, and the only console to have even reached the corporate bracket of the market is also the Wii. Ever had an Xbox 360 in your department's lounge room?

Earlier, Microsoft Game Studios VP Shane Kim explained why they were inspired with Nintendo's accomplishments with the Wii and how Microsoft Game Studios hopes to tap into a broader piece of the market that none of the competing platforms knew existed. According to Kim, they hope to follow suit by attracting older, younger and fairer people to their platform. So why comment like this now?