Nintendo explains the Wii Vitality Sensor

Is the Wii Vitality Sensor going to be as successful as the Wii Balance Board? Nintendo certainly seems to think so...
Is the Wii Vitality Sensor going to be as successful as the Wii Balance Board? Nintendo certainly seems to think so...

Nintendo's US President Reggie Fils-Aime has claimed that the company's heart-beat monitor that was launched at E3 2009, the Wii Vitality Sensor, is set to be as successful as the Wii Balance Board.

Despite widespread scepticism amongst the gaming media in attendance at Nintendo's E3 conference, Fils-Aime has said that we will have to wait until we play Vitality Sensor games before we "get it".

"If I told you that you would be standing on an oversized bathroom scale, and having fun doing it, you probably would have said, 'Reggie, I don't get it.' And yet here we are with the balance board arguably as the third largest development platform across the globe," Fils-Aime told Fast Company.

"All I can tell you is, with the game developers that we have, we will bring forth an experience that you will say, 'Wow, I get it'. Until you have that software, it's tough to understand."

Of course, it would have helped if Nintendo had deigned to actually show some games using the Wii Vitality Sensor at E3 2009...

The new core gamer

Fils-Aime also identifies what he refers to as 'the new core' - specifically "girls who have bought a DS or DSi, and maybe have played something like Nintendogs or maybe have played new Super Mario Brothers for DS. This is another step in the journey for them, and then also to showcase Wii Fit Plus, and then to showcase the Vitality Sensor.

"There are a 150 million consumers in the markets that we do business, that say they'd be interested in videogames if they had the right content, but today don't play.

"Those are the consumers that we believe something like the Vitality Sensor with the right software could compel to get in the game."

Via Fast Company

Adam Hartley