In infinity, high scores are even higher

The age issue is extending into videogames. The CEO of Nintendo plans to leave no demographic unturned when targeting sales of his Wii console. Already, reports are coming in of golf-handy grandmothers beating younger gamers on 18-hole simulations. When users are not eating, sleeping, working or going to school, any other time is fair game. One wonders how long it will be before eating drops off that shortlist, and gamers are fed through food shooting out of their Wiimotes, or a Wiintravenous glucose drip – we will all resemble Charlie Chaplin, trapped on the production line in Modern Times, gaming into infinity.

The add-ons could extend into handheld devices, triggering muscle movements through electric currents in commuters up and down the country, turning the journey to work into a non-stop cardio breakdown. With the pending release of Wii Fit and the rise of obesity on both sides of the Atlantic (how long before the Chinese start getting fat, too?) is that necessarily bad for our health?

Intriguingly, the dead may yet get a slice of the consumer revolution: cemeteries are to become places for the living, as much as the dead, it was reported today, becoming more sociable and easier on the eye. Perhaps we will all like it so much that we won’t leave. There is even be an onsite café planned at a location in Arnos Vale, Bristol, where the future deceased can chew the fat over high scores, Mii customisation and the finer points of Wiiing into the afterlife.