A survey of over 2,500 callers to The Gadget Helpline, a phone service that consumers having problems with broken electrical equipment can call for help, asked "what gadget makes you the happiest". The results underline once gain the increasing popularity of games consoles, once considered a niche hobby for young men. The Wii, made by Japanese giant Nintendo, topped the poll, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 coming in fourth place and the hand-held DS console coming in eighth place. The Wii, which was launched just a little over two years ago in the UK, has beaten off the iPod, the digital music player made by Apple, and which has won over an army of fans since it first hit the British market in 2001. Nintendo's success has been to attract not just technology fans, but also children and older consumers to its machines, thanks to its so-called casual games. Five million households in Britain now own a Wii, with more than 3 million sold last year. The gadget allows players to use a hand-held controller to simulate a sport, such as golf or bowls, pretend to ski jump or even play the ukulele – activities far removed from the fast cars and shooting games favoured by software manufacturers in the past. GadgetHelpline.com, is a telephone service that costs 60p a minute, that promises to help baffled electronics users struggling their kit. A spokesman said: "With the world now quite literally at our fingertips, we're fast being robbed of the need to socialise with other humans, but the success of games consoles shows that there remains huge appeal in the concept of sharing time and space with friends and loved ones."
1. Nintendo Wii
2. iPod
3. iPhone 3G
4. Xbox 360
5. Blackberry
6. Sky+
7. Mac Book
8. Nintendo DS
9. Tom Tom 930 Satellite Navigation System
10. Sony PRS-505 Reader
( www.telegraph.co.uk )
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