The Wii Workout

December 30th, 2006, 13:45 Posted By: wraggster

via NYT

I don’t ordinarily review games or game consoles; The Times has an excellent game reviewer in Charles Herold.
But I have to comment about the Nintendo Wii (pronounced “we”), which was here at the Pogue compound for the holidays only because Nintendo had loaned me one for a TV segment. (This $250 game console was sold out everywhere in the weeks before Christmas.)
The Wii’s controller is a white plastic handheld slab. It communicates wirelessly with a thin sensor strip that lies atop your TV set. As you swing the control through the air, your animated character on the screen flawlessly mimics your motions.
Compared with the XBox 360 and Playstation 3, the Wii’s graphics are pretty crude. At least in the included suite of games, the characters look like Weebles (or is that Wiibles?). In the baseball game, the players don’t even have arms or legs, for heaven’s sake. The bat and ball move extremely realistically, but they’re attached to you by some kind of magnetic force rather than actual limbs.
But you don’t care one iota. This game is just an unbelievable amount of fun. Over the holidays, it entertained everyone — no exaggeration — from my two-year-old to my 78-year-old father. The wireless motion-detection business, aided by the sound effects and vibrations that emerge from the controller itself, works so smoothly, so seamlessly, that you become completely immersed. Great music, an effortless interface design and a kid-friendly “design your own Wiible” mode make it all even more enjoyable.
What surprises me most, however, is how few people are commenting on the Wii’s potential for providing exercise to America’s sedentary kids.
My nine-year-old son isn’t especially inactive; he does tae kwon do and tennis. But he loves video games, too. And the Sunday he got his hands on the Wii, he spent *four hours* playing the included suite of sports games (tennis, golf, bowling, baseball, boxing).
The next day, he taught his seven-year-old sister how to play. Using a second controller, the two of them have been playing doubles tennis for about half an hour daily. The little Wiibles actually do the running for you — you’re responsible only for the racquet’s speed, timing and angle — but my kids got into this game, lunging, jumping, following through. They’re out of breath and sweating after awhile. They’re getting aerobic exercise and not even noticing.
Online, there are already gripes and legal threats regarding Wii-induced muscle aches, which is pretty much what you’d expect from nerds who haven’t moved their bodies in years and live in a litigious society. I have equally little sympathy for people who wind up with nicks and bruises because they ignore the huge, on-screen warning that, before every game, advises you to move furniture out of the way.
Nintendo itself is clearly too smart to market the Wii as a fitness device. You won’t see a word about it in the ads. The closest a spokeswoman would come to addressing the fitness topic is, “Enjoying the Wii in both a physical and emotional way is one of Nintendo’s new forms of gaming. It’s a great mind/body connection.”
Now, I already know what kind of hate mail I’m going to get. “You’re a terrible parent,” it’ll say. “Your kids should be outside getting fresh air and sunshine, playing stickball and walking a mile to school, uphill both ways!”
Yes, O.K., sure. That would be great.
That would also be 1950.
Besides, that’s the wrong comparison. I am not suggesting replacing real, outdoor, playing-with-neighborhood-kids exercise with Wii playing.
I am, however, suggesting that the Wii is infinitely better for our kids’ health than any other video or computer game — in fact, better than just about any other indoor activity.
What makes the Wii’s effect even more promising is its much greater appeal. The Wii is not for “gamers.”
Anybody — even 78-year-old lawyers who’ve never touched a video game — can immediately get into these games.
One enterprising blogger has already launched an official six-week Wii fitness experiment. He’ll track his body fat and resting heart rate as he builds daily 30-minute Wii workouts into his routine.
But I don’t need to wait for his results; I’ve already seen it in my family. When the Wii becomes readily available in stores again — analysts are hinting that that will be in March — I’ll be the 5,384,196th in line to buy one.

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