Families that play games together...

…are the sweet spot for console makers, the Washington Post reports. Some companies, e.g., Microsoft, *say* they want to sell more game players to little kids and women but keep selling action games that appeal more to teen an adult men. Nintendo is a different story, according to the Post. "So adamant is the company about reaching families who don't consider themselves game fans that it has taken to showing up on doorstops with its new system, called the Wii (which rhymes with 'me'). Seriously. Last month, the game company rented a moving truck and drove to the home of a Southern California mother of two girls, ages 8 and 3. Inside the truck were large-screen televisions and four units of the new console." The mom blogs about motherhood (this is a story about online marketing, too), and her family doesn't own any game consoles. Nintendo is thrilled that she wrote in her blog that she's now a fan of Wii. For its part, Microsoft told the Post "family-friendly" games are on the way. We'll see how it's looking for the PlayStation 3 when it becomes available next month. For a closer look at the three consoles, check out HowStuffWorks.com's reviews of Wii PS3, and Xbox 360. Meanwhile, MS has launched a campaign to teach parents how to use Xbox 360's parental controls, ArsTechnica and the BBC report (here's Microsoft's page about the safety settings).