2010: The Year Fitness Games Bust?
Even before the invention of Nintendo’s motion tracking Wii remote there have been plenty of people trying to put video games and fitness together. Yourself!Fitness on the original Xbox was one of our favorites but you could go back as far as the NES Power Pad and the Sega Activator as pioneering examples of getting gamers off their duffs. But the Wii changed everything, combining revolutionary motion tracking with a focus on the casual and family markets and everyone wanted in. Wii Fit, EA Sports Active, Jillian Michaels’ Pocket Trainer, and countless other titles featuring “famous” experts and celebrities have already come and gone.
With Sony and Microsoft getting into the motion tracking game this year with PlayStation Move and Kinect it was hard to find an E3 lineup without leotards, sweatbands, or overactive presenters. This all came to a head this morning when I spotted a press release for Get Fith with Mel B which, in its defense, sounds like a pretty big deal for the United Kingdom. Its unveiling at E3, which makes it sound more like Yourself!Fitness than a truly interactive workout, sent me on an hour-long quest to round up all the exergaming announced at the show this year.
It’s not as overwhelming as my headline makes it sound and there probably won’t be a year that everyone gives up on exer-play but I’m already getting a little tired of all the fitness and dancing coming to Kinect, Move and the overburdened Wii. That said, I know Katy will be all over EA Sports Active 2, all of us here at GameLuv are interested in Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, and I find myself strangely drawn to the breathing simulator that is Innergy. Hey, it’s got sweet art design and I’ll never be able to forget Joel McHale’s jokes about the pulse sensor. Any of these have you ready to move or is it just getting in the way of the good stuff like head tracking in Forza and The Fight?
