June 26th, 2009 by David Hinkle
Thanks to the success of games such as Wii Fit, EA Sports Active and Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Ultimatum 2009, the medical community is starting to take games seriously as a means to pump you up keep us healthy. Reuters reports that at this year’s fifth annual Games for Health Conference in Boston, a bolstered attendance brought health experts together to talk about these games, and you’d be surprised how much money these titles generated last year.
“Healthcare is 18 percent of the GDP of the United States and so games for health is probably the largest sector of activity in the serious games field long-term,” said Ben Sawyer, a co-founder of The Games for Health Project. He added, “If you add up the 18 month sales of Wii Fit and the sales of EA Sports Active, Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution and other healthy games, the worldwide retail numbers are over $2 billion.” That’s not a bad slice of the $22 billion pie that gaming lovingly prepared last year, if we may say so.
Some experts think the government should look into offering these types of games in schools to help kids learn the importance of exercise, while others think that a public service campaign should be started and backed by the president, Congress, and other federal agencies. We’d comment, but we really only play Wii Fit for the hulahoop game.
Health games big business, experts push for exergaming in schools originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Posted in , exergaming, fitness, dance-dance-revolution, wii-fit, jillian-michaels, ea-sports-active, games-for-health | No Comments »
April 30th, 2009 by JC Fletcher
EA Sports president
Peter Moore spoke to
VG247 about the state of the economy, offering careful statements about layoffs, sequelitis, and PC releases of sports franchises. But of everything happening at EA Sports, Moore had the most to say about the upcoming Wii exercise program,
EA Sports Active.
“I call it a platform,” Moore said. “Yes, it’s a game, but it’s bigger than a game, bigger than a franchise, bigger than a product. It’s a true platform that we can sell expansion packs, sell more peripherals, ultimately get some download on there.” Interesting choice of words, considering that EA Sports Active’s biggest competitor is literally a platform.
Moore said that he hopes to add biometric data soon. “If I can do that, if I can get your heart-rate on the screen, I mean then I can really drive towards what my vision of this product ultimately can be.”
Active and other exergames like it, according to Moore, can help EA and the game industry in general deal with “the most vitriolic press,” including the Daily Mail, who frequently “blame [videogames] for pestilence, the plague, everything, and I think it’s good that we have things to point to that say, ‘This is getting you off the couch’ and provide a little bit of balance.”
Peter Moore: EA Sports Active is a ‘platform’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Posted in , EA, exercise, exergaming, ea-sports, ea-sports-active, non-game, peter-moore | No Comments »
June 1st, 2008 by JC Fletcher
Filed under: News
Superstar game industry analyst Michael Pachter told the LA Times that Nintendo’s smaller North American supply of Wii Fit units can be blamed, just like everything else that has anything to do with business, on the value of the dollar. “The shortage demonstrates one consequence of the weak dollar. We’re seeing companies ignore their largest market simply because they can make a greater profit elsewhere.” Then — seemingly to make sure blogs quoted him — Pachter added, “They know that Americans will be just as fat a few months from now.” The article states that about 500,000 Wii Fits were shipped to the U.S., versus “as many as 2 million” to Europe.
We think that if the disparity is indeed strategic, it has less to do with the decreasing value of the dollar, and more to do with two other trends: Nintendo of Europe’s increased friendliness toward nontraditional “expanded audience” games, and European gamers’ acceptance of exorbitant game prices. It’s not so much that $90 is low for Wii Fit — it’s that they can get away with selling it for $140 in Europe.
Posted in , Europe, exercise, exergaming, wii-fit, pachter, shortage | No Comments »
May 26th, 2008 by Phil Larsen
Filed under: Interviews, News
Speaking with the local paper merchants, Nintendo Australia’s Rose Lappin seemed to like Wii Fit’s chances against the current everywhere-but-Wii juggernaut Grand Theft Auto. After starting out with standard banter concerning the Wii and DS dominating Aussie sales charts, Lappin confidently talked up the ability of Wii Fit to snag the majority interest of gamers over the long-term.
A bunch of sweaty Australian fitness fanatics have already been doing push-ups (read: smashing guns) for almost three weeks now using Wii Fit. During that time, the Balance Board of Justice stole the top sales spot away from GTA IV (irony is funny), and it hasn’t been able to reclaim its crown.
Lappin reassures us that Wii Fit will be supported for a long time, and is also pleased to see some physical education programs in local schools using the package to transform John Q Kid into Lil’ Rambo. We’re sure this is music to the ears of many parents in Australia, who would love to keep their chil’n away from Niko Bellic and his array of misadventures.
[Via Aussie-Nintendo]
Posted in , balance-board, australia, exergaming, fitness, wii-fit, grand-theft-auto, grand-theft-auto-iv, rose-lappin | No Comments »
May 24th, 2008 by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: News, Interviews
According to Time’s latest interview with Shigeru Miyamoto, there may have been some genuine upending of tea tables during the making of Wii Fit, as opposed to the metaphorical kind that Shiggy prefers.
Chatting to the publication to promote the game, Miyamoto confessed that the he and his team felt “a lot of nervousness” while developing the title, and that the lofty expectations of other people caused some stress. The article also mentions that the game’s development “nearly led his 15-person development team to quit in frustration,” though we’ve no idea whether that’s Time slightly embellishing a story, or what Miyamoto actually said.
All this talk of feeling stressed, Shiggy, and yet our letters offering slow, sensual shoulder rubs still go unanswered. He can’t complain.
[Via Go Nintendo]
Posted in , exercise, exergaming, fitness, miyamoto, wii-fit, shigeru-miyamoto, development, shiggy | No Comments »
November 20th, 2007 by Chris Greenhough
Filed under: News, Tech stuff
When students in Queensland, Australia recently attempted to make exercise bikes
interesting to use (surely an impossible feat if you ask us, but good luck to them), they turned to the Wii's
unique controller for a helping hand. Their idea was straightforward enough: place a giant screen in front of the user which shows them merrily zipping through the countryside and other virtual vistas as they cycle.
But for this to work effectively, two Wiimotes were required -- one strapped to the cyclist's helmet (so that turning the head would allow users to take in scenery around them), and one to the leg of the cyclist (meaning the device could detect what speed users were travelling at, and adjust the on-screen image accordingly).
They're calling it "virtual exercise," and say the next step is to take the image from the screen and have it projected into a pair of goggles, before selling the idea to gyms. Presumably they'll have found an alternative to the Wiimote by then, but if this does show up in your local sweatshop in the future, know where the inspiration came from, eh?
[Thanks, Maddles!]
Read |
Permalink |
Email this |
Linking Blogs |
Comments
Posted in , wiimote, wii-remote, exercise, exergaming, sports, Science, technology | No Comments »
November 16th, 2007 by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Friday Video
GameTrailers has a ridiculous number of
Wii Fit trailers and demos up right now. While they're all in Japanese, the videos still offer a great (if sedate) look at the fitness trainer and its different uses. We've put one up here in our weekly video spotlight, but if you have the urge to watch more, you'll have to head over there. We're not kidding when we say there's a
lot.
%Gallery-4745%
Read |
Permalink |
Email this |
Linking Blogs |
Comments
Posted in , trailer, exergaming, fitness, demo, wii-fit, training | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2007 by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: News
It's been a while since we've seen anything on
Wii Fit, but Dengeki Online has an update that includes several screens, a shot of the
boxed set, and a video preview of the fitness title. The Japanese release date is getting closer and closer, and we can't wait to gauge public reaction to the title. Critically, of course, the nongame continues to be lauded;
Popular Mechanics recently named it one of the
top ten "gadgets" of 2007, and it's not even out yet!
Jog on past the break to get a peek at the box -- but to see the video, you'll have to head over to the
source.
%Gallery-4745%
Read |
Permalink |
Email this |
Linking Blogs |
Comments
Posted in , exergaming, fitness, wii-fit, wiifit | No Comments »
September 27th, 2007 by Alisha Karabinus
Filed under: Wii Warm Up
Wii Fit may
encourage you to exercise, but this bad boy
requires that you do it -- for real, none of this leaning crap -- in order to play your game of choice. Gamercize hooks into both the controller and a piece of real exercise equipment and unless you're actively working it, your controller won't function. That's one way to increase the difficulty on something.
Metroid Prime 3 too easy? Throw in a little cycling while you're at it and see how many times you miss those jumps. We're not sure just how much the Wii Gamercize system will cost you, however; though they promise to start marketing their setup for the next-gen consoles this month, the site doesn't yet seem to be
updated.
Apparently Gamercize has been around for a while, but we missed hearing about it. Now that we have, we're honestly not sure if we should just laugh or actually be interested. It could be a neat idea, but there's something about it that inspires giggles. Whatcha think?
Read |
Permalink |
Email this |
Linking Blogs |
Comments
Posted in , exercise, exergaming, fitness, gamercize | No Comments »
