So. I got a Nintendo Wii.

Let me make myself clear: this is not a product endorsement.

But, if you have been following the tech press lately, these gaming systems are hard to get.

I would never be one of those consumers lining up at dawn outside a big box retailer. Last Sunday, said retailer listed the Wii bundle for $249, an established price point for a bundled package (the gaming console, any peripheral, and a video game). The salesman told me--online shopper--to line up at 7am. Right.

With my son’s 10th birthday party this week, I pondered for my non-gaming system owning son about what his friends would do. He’s played with other plug-n-play systems-- Xbox, Playstation, and GameCube-- at his friends’ homes, but has never asked for one (my barometer for our lack of ownership and money saving strategy). At this age, already a preview to adolescence, leaving kids to their own imagination is, sad to say, "boring" and old school.

But, as I read about the Wii redefining family fun and breaking the mold of gaming as a non-social activity, I thought about my own family and how this could add another element to our own kind of fun.

I never lined up at 7am, and arrogantly went anyway to said retailer a few days later to buy one. Zilch. The salesperson listed a store 25 miles away round trip that had...one. It could be for naught driving all the way out there, only to be told by the proverbial smug gaming salesperson that I was a loser for not lining up at 7am last Sunday.

But as I drove to this store, I also thought about how gaming as a social good platform can address health or environmental issues. K-8 schools have used Dance Dance Revolution to increase physical activity and address obesity, Pam Omidyar developed “Re-Mission” to help kids virtually fight cancer, and National Geographic sponsors “Adventure Ecology” to raise awareness among youth about our environment.

And, in light of CTFC’s own new ZD 2.0 grantmaking, I wondered what great ideas would come along as pipeline grants, perhaps utilizing gaming as a social media tool to address civic engagement or community assets building.

I felt good walking into that retailer, knowing that the only one Wii left in my entire metropolitan community of half a million people was waiting for me. Seriously. And it was.

At 2:00am, those boys were still playing Wii baseball, doubles tennis, or balancing a panda on a ball (check it out!) One day post birthday party (the last one until sweet 16…maybe), Wii was the hit. That, and water balloons of course.

Maybe old school still rules too.