Nintendo legend (I don't use that term lightly) Shigeru Miyamoto has "posted" a question at social search site Yahoo! Answers asking when users first heard of Nintendo and what they think about it now. Certainly a clever tactic by someone in the marketing department for some cheap market research, the 5400+ answers also demonstrate the demographics of social software users (perhaps drawing some reticent gamers into its fold too, by the power of gaming celebrity). They are disarmingly a lot younger than I am, with a decent gender split. Maybe that's the Nintendo factor, however.
Most of the folks who have responded were under the age of 5 when they first heard of the console (regardless of whether it was a NES or an N64), which demonstrates how pervasive games are in our cultures, beginning in our youths. It would be interesting to see the results of a similar question, about the PlayStation brand. I imagine that the age at first sight would slant older, and not simply because the machine was released in 1995 (instead of 1985 - for me at least).
So how old were you the first time you hear about the PlayStation, and what does it mean now?
