Nintendo announces Wii Fit

At Nintendo’s E3 2007 conference today (July 11, 2007), the company unveiled their latest innovative property – Wii Fit. Shiguru Miyamoto himself came onstage to demonstrate the exercise simulator, complete with it’s own wireless peripheral, the Wii balance board, which gauges weight and motion by using pressure points.

Wii Fit is essentially a collection of more than 40 activities in four categories with a focus on increasing balance and overall fitness: aerobics, muscle conditioning, balance exercises and yoga positions. Activities demonstrated onstage today included an aerobic leg extension exercise, dancing, some kind of Mii-hula hoop contest, and a soccer simulation (which Reggie and Miyamoto competed in). The board measures the player’s balance and body mass index, which the game tracks over time (the idea being that frequent sessions will increase fitness levels) and can hold/compare statistics for several people at once.

The video showed a few people getting quite a workout with Wii Fit, and members of the development team apparently have a competition going over who can lose more weight with the game, so it seems like Wii Fit might be a legit way to shed some pounds. Gamers who balk at the idea of getting off the couch may not be into this, but it’s undoubtedly one of the coolest “casual” concepts to come out of Nintendo in a long time.

Read [Nintendic] Read [1UP]