I agree with both women that it's better not to specially cater for men or women when it comes to games. What would a specific girl-game look like? An adventure with 'my little pony horses?', a Barbie Need for Speed underground edition? Nope. Quite a few games are about storytelling and there are chickflicks and guyflicks in the movies so perhaps the same types of stories incorporated into games might appeal to the two genres. Of course this analogy is off - since not many 'movie' stories translate well to a game and I (a 6'8'' straight male) actually quite like some of those chick-flicks.
What I see in my girlfriend is that she actually would quite like to try out some of the other games (RPG's, Racing etc) but the control schemes are daunting - some xbox / ps2 / gamecube games have a habit of displaying a controller with all the appropriate functions - well this could make quite a few people start to hyperventilate - it can be a very intimidating sight. Guys get a controller pushed in their hands early on in life. The little women in our society are expected to behave very girlie and play with dolls etc.... So the treshold / access to games might actually be quite a bit easier for guys - they don't have to choose gaming they just are..... Could it be that girls actually have to choose to be exposed to videogames and therefore make a consious efford and are at a disadvantage because of that?

-= Mark Vergeer - Armchair Arcade editor =-