“How do you feel about Wii Fit?”

As a consumer, I expect to get the most out of the money I spend on the things that I buy. With the Wii, many of the games released so far have felt a little poor in terms of value for money. By having both of a pair of controls costing more than the price of a chart Wii game, it’s sometimes hard to justify the multi player aspect of the console as it would cost almost as much as the machine itself to kit up an extra three friends with controls to play together.

Obviously over time the situation will ease a little as developers will use tried and tested methods for controlling and making games for the console. With Wii Fit, Nintendo are releasing another peripheral which is developed to get people interacting with their television screens in ways they never expected from a games console. Taking a cue from aerobic videos and workout shows, at first glance Wii Fit seems like a glorified pair of scales which will determine your BMI and fitness in comparison to other members of your household. Retailing for £69.99 the game won’t come cheap and considering the Wii remote was intended to be a replacement for all necessary extra peripherals, clearly Nintendo are not staying true to their first intentions.

Although the balance board will open up new areas in gaming and allow us to control our experiences with the console a lot more efficiently, the price tag is a little too much to ask for me. If the balance board was included with the game for the price of a normal chart title I think a lot more of the casual audience would be interested, but at £70, I doubt the game will be an impulse purchase for Wii gamers when it’s released later this month.

“How do you feel about Wii Fit?”

WiiFit is probably one of the most welcome games which cross between two different aspects of my life (fitness and gaming) and I do think that this will increase Nintendo’s bank balance a substantial amount. Each unit is £70 which equated to almost half of a Wii unit and a third of a DS unit and costs a lot less to produce. Also, much like the Wii and DS, WiiFit cannot be pirated due to needed the WiiFit board.

My biggest worry is what if much like Nintendogs, Brain Training or Wii Sports this is a fad? Although you won’t see Brain Training falling from the UK charts any time soon (I use UK as an example as it’s the only chart I know off the top of my head) hardly anyone I know who owns the game actually bothers to do it once a day like the game asks you to. Will we see WiiFit become a national/ worldwide success or the addition to the stuff in the corner you always put off until tomorrow like the Christmas fitness tapes and that exercise bike? I could comment all day but I think its best if we wait and see.

“Do You Think It Will Help People Lose Weight?”

That’s up to the person I guess, my girlfriend and I plan to use it 3 times a week before work, if we don’t do it enough then I don’t think it’ll help. But the idea of WiiFit is to get you.. Fit! Not help you lose weight. I would say that WiiFit will help build muscle and make people fitter, but losing weight needs a diet and lifestyle change to work.

“How do you feel about Wii Fit?”

After witnessing Wii Fit back at E3 2007 (at the time it was called Wii Health Pack), I couldn’t help but wonder if Nintendo spent time reminiscing their array of past peripherals which had suffered little success or commercial failures, from the Virtual Boy to the Nintendo 64DD. I awaken 3/4 of a year later to realize that now that Wii Fit was available in Japan, it has sold over 1.1 million units since its December 2007 release.

I can see the differences between Wii Fit and Nintendo’s previous pieces of junk; it is targeting a specific (and rather large) demographic. The casual audience, in terms of purchasing software, wants games that reflect or mimic an activity in real life, and what better way to do that than Wii Fit! Not only does the device/software take aspects from real life activities, it also helps the user stay fit (obvious according to the title)! Its obvious to me that despite the £70 people will have to pay, its going to sell faster than NOA President Reggie Fils-Aime’s ability to “kick ass and take names”.

Personally I don’t see the value in Wii Fit, considering the harsh price tag. The activities (yoga, step aerobics, push ups, hula hooping, etc) could easily be performed without any electronic software or equipment, making Wii Fit seem more like a subsidiary to checking your fitness progression rather than a needed tool to stay fit. But really, I’m not going to have people consider otherwise. By now you have stopped reading my opinion to go pre-order Wii Fit.

“Do You Think It Will Help People Lose Weight?”

If one were to use Wii Fit on a daily basis, perhaps once every morning, I guess I could see people lose weight, but not by a substantial amount. To compliment what Acid has mentioned, you shouldn’t buy the software to lose weight because there are more practical means to do so. Wii Fit was created to keep people in normal shape and to track down statistics on your progression as you undergo the game’s activities. I could see this replacing your mother’s daily morning walks.

“How do you feel about Wii Fit?”

Wii Fit is going to be a huge success in the UK and everyone knows it. It only takes someone educated enough to see how it has done in other continents to see that in many ways it is already a success. However, what counts as a success for a product such as this?

No doubt Nintendo, together with most other parties, will see this as a financial success by calculating the amount of units which have been sold. I’m slightly more sceptical then that, and I would only consider it a success if it did what it aims to do, and that is to make people fitter.

I know from personal experience that if I was to purchase myself a copy of Wii Fit, I’d play on it for a week or so and then just leave it to go dusty in the corner; the same corner that already houses my Guitar Hero guitar, Donkey Konga bongos and soon to hold some Rock Band drums and guitar.

“Do You Think It Will Help People Lose Weight?”

I think that if people decide to really use it to it’s full potential then yeah, people will lose weight. I mean all the mechanics are in the software to help people to keep fit, and it does it in a fun and pleasant way.

However I also think that there is a very high percentage of people who won’t use it as it’s intended, and although they will buy it and help Nintendo reach their version of a “success”, I don’t think it will change many people’s lives or help them lose weight.

“How do you feel about Wii Fit?”

Nintendo have for a long time recently been reaching out to audiences that have never really been interested in Video games let alone experienced the thrill of completing one. They’ve done this with titles like Wii Sports, Dr. Kawashimas Brain Training, Wii Play etc: and now Wii Fit. All of which, excluding Wii Sports have dominated global console video games charts since their release.

Wii Fit comes with the Inspiring balance board which will *hopefully* bring a lot of influence and inspiration to not only gamers but game developers (3rd and 1st party) to create new and exciting games for the Board. I believe the board itself will do very well in addition Wii Fit, without any doubt will do excellently; just as it has done in Japan, it’s fun, entertaining and is supposed to get you fit! What’s not to like?

If people want the inspiration to get fit but just can’t find it, or the motivation they need, then Wii Fit has it; anyone can view the players progress directly from the Wii menu. No one however will want anyone else to see that the have put on weight giving the user a motivation to get better and to lose more weight.”

Do You Think It Will Help People Lose Weight?”

This is a hard question for me, it simply dependant on how the user uses the software. If its used correctly and used by the player to actually LOSE WEIGHT then yes, however if the player chooses not to use the game for what its designed for; to play regularly to check your progress etc then the player will certainly not lose weight from the influence of Wii Fit.