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Wii fit craze @ Friday, July 10, 2009

As people gets more conscious now a days in getting fit, more and more exercise tools are being developed. In fact, even video games are now created to become a new exercise buddy. Wii fit is developed by Nintendo for the Wii console.

Wii is an exercise game consisting of activities using the Wii Balance Board peripheral. This Balance Board peripherals allows the software to, among other uses, calculate body mass index (BMI) when told the user's height. The game has about 50 different activities, including yoga poses, push ups, and other exercises. Furthermore, Wii Fit allows its players to take body tests and compare their results without the game disc by installing the game's own "Wii Fit Channel" to the Wii Menu. Wii Fit tracks a user's "Wii Fit Age" through a body test basing the result on the user's current age, weight and athletic ability.

The activities for Wii fit is divided into four categories: yoga (work on the user's balance and flexibility), strength training (put the user's strength to the test with muscle-toning exercises), aerobics( get the user's heart pumping with fun, interactive Aerobic exercises), and balance games(get into the action with fun, balanced-based games). The activities provide a core workout, emphasizing controlled movements rather than overexertion.
New activities can be unlocked by gaining "Fit Credits", which are accumulated in the "FitBank", a small piggy bank dedicated to keep track of time spent on Wii Fit. Minutes of Fit Credits are equal to the number of minutes doing an activity rather than the number of minutes of overall game plays. At certain stages, new yoga poses or muscle workouts are unlocked based on the total time spent working out. Being the best at an activity with a 100% score, or playing an activity a certain number of times unlocks more rigorous versions of that activity.

Wii fit is described as a way to get families work out together. It is influenced by activities in the daily life of the developer, Shigeru Miyamoto. He states that he and his family had become more health-conscious, going to the gym and tracking their weight. He found that it had become "fun over time to talk about these things" and as weighing oneself "didn't make much of a game" Nintendo decided to build games around the idea to mesh with the concept.

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