Underground Journal

How the Wii Fit Revolutionized Fitness Video Games

When the Nintendo Wii came out, it shocked the entire video gaming world.  Being able to control what was going on in the television with more than just pushing buttons was a revolutionary step.  Sure, there were other such offerings, but nothing on as big of a scale as the Nintendo Wii having it integrated into the console. A fear years later, they took it another step and revolutionized a whole entire genre of video games, essentially creating the exercise and fitness video games genre.

The original Nintendo had the mat that you could play Track & Field and other various video games but it was not as popular as it could have been.  Dance Dance Revolution became a popular video game franchise and that got people moving around more and getting more exercise with their video games than they had before.  But none of these offerings because popular.

The Nintendo launched the Wii Fit balance board, a specific board with a variety of games that allowed you to exercise, have fun, and still play video games.  It was able to measure how much you weighed, it estimated how many calories you burned based on a calculation of your weight and the various exercises they offered.  Some of the were strength training exercises, others were Yoga, and then some fun exercise/game hybrids.  The smartest thing that Nintendo did with the balance board was to allow other video game developers to incorporate the balance board into their games.  Snowboarding games, Olympic sport video games, and many more exercise games were released from various developers.

Because Nintendo wanted people to spend money on the balance board, allowing them to have a variety of games on an ever growing list that support the balance board was a smart financial decision for them.  Who would have though that you’d be able to play video games and get exercise too?

(0) Comments Permalink