ACSM on the Wii!

8-24-10: It's not often that I see the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) publish something on exegaming, so it was a nice surprise to see a posting on the Wii and seniors in their current e-bulletin. You can read more about it here:

Hope we can see more exergaming research featured on ACSM!

National Wii Games Tournament!

7-1-10: Only 15 days till the first-ever national Wii Games Tournament kicks off! Too bad there wasn't a location nearer to us, tho the Finals will be held in Los Angeles, which I'll have to go check out. See the website to see if there's a location near you!

http://www.wiigames2010.com/wii-event-locations.aspx#stateca

Now if we can just get a more inclusive World Exergame Tournament going on, like the National Spelling Bee, that would be awesome! Kids could be training all over the place--at home, in rec centers, at Y's, in after-school programs--training for their local competition in hopes of making it to sectionals, regionals, and then the finals. (Exergame Fitness has hundreds of locations they have set up. Imagine training of teams going on at all of these facilities!)

Imagine teams of kids, adults, seniors, challenged athletes...all traveling to the "World Cup of Exergaming" in some country? Wouldn't that be a sight?

It's been done already--a test competition between a school in California and England (thanks to Richard of Gamercize), so we know the technology is there.

It would make for great TV viewing as well. Maybe there could even be a TV show like the American Gladiators, featuring the latest exergaming athletes!

Having something like this would be a huge motivation to a lot of kids who might not otherwise want to do a whole lot of physical activity. How many kids will make it to the World Little League tournament, or the Junior Olympics in swimming, track and field, etc.? Not many. But if we had something like this for the "video game generation", they would have something to train for.

Those of us who are involved with exergaming sites know that even with video games, the newness can wear off so unless you keep adding new games to your inventory, kids can get bored. Having something like a national or world tournament system (and a chance to be on ESPN or American Exergaming Gladitor on TV) would give kids something to train for and look forward to, thus increasing long-term compliance with their weekly exergaming workout.

Hopefully we'll see that soon and I'll do all I can to make that happen. Anyone interested in joining me & MedPlay Technologies to make this happen???

New study on Wii...

11-17-09: This study on the effectiveness of Wii to provide exercise came out at the recent American Heart Assoc. conf. You can read all about it at the link below. It seems that we still need to keep convincing regular healthcare the exergaming can meet the federal recommendations for physical activity. If they just tried it out for themselves, they would realize that fact!

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE5AF3AR20091116

My visit to E3!

7-16-08: This year was my first year to go to E3 under the new format. Gone are the days when it took up several halls and had 10's of thousands of people. It seemed very small by comparison. There did seem to be a lot more HD camcorder equipment all over the place, with editor and reporters of video game magazines and blogs shooting and uploading on the fly.

I was only able to spend one day there, due to my day job obligations back at the clinic. But since there was only one small room with games in it, I was able to see everything in just over an hour--AND play some games! (Before, it took me several days to roam all the halls...and that was barely taking time to play the games!).

Thanks to my friend, Rob, at Golin Harris, I was able to score an invitation to Nintendo's press conf. at the Kodak Theater.

The first famous person to come out to promote one of the newest games was Shaun White, Olympic gold medalist in snowboarding! It utilizes the Wii Fit board, as you can see him demonstrating.
Another game coming out soon is a Star Wars game. I'm a big fan of Star Wars, so I can't wait for this to come out. Yes, it's a bit violent (sword fighting and all), but it utilizes the newest accessory for the Wiimote, the Motion Plus!
This new attachment to the bottom of the Wiimote allows true 3D movement, more so than the original Wiimote. Once you use, it, you'll see what I'm talking about.
It will come bundled with this new game, Resort, which has a bunch of fun games you can play.
One is a frisbee dog catching game, where you can actually tilt the frisbee to do different curves! It isn't quite set up to be able to throw forehand, backhand, or hammers yet, but hopefully they'll work on it and then maybe they'll have an Ultimate Frisbee Game for the Wii!!! Now THAT would really rock and I will stand in line for that and that would cause me to buy my own Wii for home use, even if that means risking sleeping on the couch!!! LOL!
Here's another game from Resort. It reminded me of the American Gladiator's Joust game, where you had to knock off your opponent of the raised circular platform with the big Q-tip. Here, you're using non-cutting swords to knock your opponent's Mii off the raised platform. In this picture, Cammie Dunaway (middle), Exec. VP for Sales and Marketing, is battling her boss, Reginald Fils-Aime (left), President and COO of NOA. Guess who won? ;-)
Another cool use of the Wiimote and the Board is this new drumming game so you can add to the rock band experience. See the video clip below.


Here's another music game...you can play in a band! At the far right end (stage left) is none other than the famous Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of over 100 Nintendo games including Donkey Kong, Mario, and the Wii games and hardware. I was hoping to get my picture taken with him, but no way could I get near him!!!


Here's a close up of the Motion Plus, attached to the bottom of the Wiimote.
Here's a clip of 2 guys battling it out on Resort.


Here's an interesting dancing game by Ubisoft. Check out the video clips to really get an idea of how it's played.




Finally, I saw Beth Bryant (bummed I didn't get her picture!) running the Serious Games booth. No exergames, but other games for health were on display here. (With all the companies making Wii games, there were plenting of exergaming going on!)

Finally, speaking of Ubisoft and games for health, I actually did get into one of the meeting rooms--Ubisoft! I didn't have an appointment, but I made one on the spot and said I wanted to see more about their Quit Smoking game, to be released in Nov. Marcella, a pro gamer on Frag Dames, sponsored by Ubisoft, demo'd it for me. Turns out she's a smoker herself and has just started really using it to see if it'll help her quit smoking! (She's a pharmacy tech by day but doesn't want to use Chantix.) I gave her my card and told her that I help people quit, so we'll see! I also wanted to see their Weight Loss Coach game, but since that's already out, they weren't promoting it there at E3.

Seniors play Wii

6-30-08: Another local story about seniors playing Wii and getting into exergaming! There's a reference about the county setting up seniors centers with exergaming--that's us! Check out the article here at the Sun.