On a cold winter’s evening a family gathers in the living room, three generations laughing and joking together, pleasant moments that will linger in the memory. It is reminiscent of a scene in an Edwardian almanac, an episode that a grandparent wistfully recalls when telling a younger generation how times have changed, for the worse.

Yet it is a scene being created in homes up and down the country this weekend, giving the lie to the claim that harmonious family life in modern Britain has all but disappeared. There may be no piano for a singalong, and the Monopoly board is gathering dust in a corner. Instead, the 21st-century family is bonding around a computer game.

These days home entertainment involves racing against one another in cartoon go-karts, a father taking on his son in a virtual game of tennis, or a mother taking the same exercise class as her daughter. Even grandparents join in. Computer games have become the modern family’s shared experience and the console is the centrepiece of a happy home.

Computer games will outsell music and video in Britain for the first time this year, a report released this week says. This surge for games has been fuelled largely by the sale of family-friendly games such as Wii Sports and Mario Kart.

Up and down the country dads are discovering their inner rock star through playing Guitar Hero and mums are creating their own living organism in Spore, which they then have to nurture into the world. Children are having to share their games with the adults.

The latest figures from the retail researcher Chart Track show that nine of the top ten games on the market are titles on the Nintendo Wii, including Wii Fit and Mario Kart, which are intended to be easy to play and appeal to all ages.

Video games were once seen as the preserve of spotty teenage boys in darkened rooms playing violent thrillers or fantasy epics. But these warriors and weapons have been replaced by plastic guitars and virtual fitness instructors.

Matthew Piner, author of Verdict’s Video Games & Consoles Retailing report, said: “Whereas music and video has become somewhat stale, video games have enjoyed an array of technological innovation which has widened the market demographic enormously and driven phenomenal growth. 2008 has seen video games catapulted into the mainstream entertainment market, to be popular with men, women, children and families alike.”

Catching on to the trend, all the big console makers plan to release family-friendly games for Christmas, and are preparing for a fierce battle. Sony hopes to revive the ailing fortunes of its PlayStation 3 with Little Big Planet. Nintendo intends to release Wii Music, where players use a movement-sensitive control to play instruments. Xbox will releaseYou’re in the Movies, which gets players to act out scenes to make funny short films.

James Honeywell, a senior executive at Nintendo, the company credited with starting the craze for family-centric gaming when it brought out its Wii console two years ago, said: “We’ve tried to expand the market, and one key area is trying to get the whole family involved. Where video games were the territory of the lone gamer, what we’ve tried to do is make it a bit more fun and accessible.”

Parents previously concerned about the perceived malign influence of games on their children are now bringing this new genre into the living room and are seeing the potential health benefits.

A report instigated by Sony Entertainment and published in Family Circle magazine this month suggested that 70 per cent of parents saw improvements in their children’s hand-eye coordination, problem-solving and typing skills after playing games. One school, according to a parent with three children there, is having cake sales to buy Nintendo DS game machines so that the pupils can do “brain training” on them.