By Sherwin Loh

LET them play and be won over.

That seems to be the winning formula of games like Wii Fit, Rock Band, Guitar Hero and SingStar. The one thing they have in common, aside from requiring more than the normal controller to play, is that they have won over folks who would have otherwise not given such games a shot.

Take Nintendo, which has been converting casual gamers to Wii Fit, an exercise game that has players swaying their bodies and swinging their arms, as game controls.

Stanley Kee, GfK Asia's commercial director of business development, notices a 'rise in such game trends' even among more unlikely players.

'I saw a granny selecting games for her grandchildren and she was smiling away.'

So expect more of such singing and shooting games next year.

However, with new innovations, there must also be more upgrades in the hardware.

The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will continue to fight the console wars but Microsoft will be hard pressed not to come out with another incarnation of its game console with a Blu-ray drive, as only the PS3 supports high-definition movies.

As for Nintendo, downloadable content is catching on, so it needs to develop that unavoidable memory add-on for the Wii which currently has none.

Such devices are also taking the effort to position themselves as all-in-one entertainment units, which can download and stream shows.

It is likely to be a question of time before they can be made to handle broadcasts and record TV shows.

Once the power of the devices are unlocked, people can look forward to true convergence of entertainment hardware.

As for games, things seem to be going the way of Hollywood, with big budget sequels like Grand Theft Auto 4, Gears Of War 2 and Metal Gear Solid4 taking over original games.

There should be a good mix of original games to pull in not only serious gamers but also casual gamers who play to kill time, and to upgrade them to regular gamers,' says Stanley.

However, while I would love to see another Final Fantasy game, the likes of Master Chief, Mario and Sonic should take a much needed vacation.