Microsoft: Gamers 'Graduate' from Wii to Xbox 360, Claims Wii Has 'Karaoke Machine' Novelty

Microsoft Xbox 360 product management director Aaron Greenberg has reaffirmed that the company does not see the Wii as a direct competitor to its console, explaining that Nintendo's customers may eventually "graduate to an Xbox 360 experience."

"I think that there's a difference in the type of customer that is buying the Wii," Greenberg told Gamasutra. "When you think about it, there's a difference between trying to be the number one console with nine year old gamers, and being the console that offers the most experiences from 13 to 33."

"I think for us, we don't really see the Wii as a direct competitor, we actually very much complement the Wii experience," Greenberg added. "It's obviously clear that we're going head-to-head with the PS3 in this generation. I think what Xbox will be able to do as well as the Wii is grow the market."

Greenberg's statements continue Microsoft's public snubbing of the Nintendo Wii. Last May, the company claimed that the Xbox 360 was the world's top-selling "high definition gaming console," a phrase that nicely excludes the Wii's substantial lead of 24.45M units against Microsoft's 19M.

"I think that a lot of the people that are buying that console today are not people that have generally bought consoles in the past, right? You see they're not buying games on it...it's almost like the same people that buy a karaoke machine, you know? They're not really buying it for games, they're just buying it as a novelty," Greenberg noted.