September 16, 2009
The Wall Street Journal has an article on the benefits San Diego Padres pitcher Heath Bell reaped from using Nintendo’s Wii Fit in the off season.
Bell was driven to work out more—not to lose weight—but to make his avatar smaller, after the game declared his character obese. The baseball player ended up losing 25 pounds and credits the game with increasing his balance. Bell is enjoying his best season to date, with his 37 saves ranking among the league leaders, though he did give up a game winning, ninth inning two-run homer last night.
Perhaps The New York Mets should look into ordering a full compliment of Wii Fit’s for their entire roster?
Comments
Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
I don't have any doubts that it worked for him, but to my knowledge 90% of people I know who have bought Wii Fit have played it a couple of times before putting it away and never playing it again.
It's not really any different from gyms who entice people with deals to improve their health and get them to sign some complicated contract which forces them to pay regular fees, even if they barely ever show up. Well, I suppose you make a one off payment for Wii Fit, but the principle is the same.
It's quite obvious that Wii Fit is a huge financial success for Nintendo, but in my opinion it makes a large profit off of a combination of people's good intentions and their inherit laziness. Stories like this (which I'm not saying are wrong) will probably convince more people to go out and busy open their wallet for a copy of Wii Fit, then play if a couple of times before putting it away and never playing it again.
I think it would be really interesting to see the statistics of how often people who have bought Wii Fit "don't" use it.
Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
And the cycle of unused exercise equipment continues. How many houses of friends and family have you been to where the ever present treadmill is sitting in a corner collecting dust?
Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
It's same with any piece of exercise equipment. People could have those amazing muscles and trim bodies just like the ones in the commercial if they actually used the machine longer than a week then put it in the closet.
Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
Mmm WII speak to teach you /strike/japanase/strike/ english...I am so there!
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Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
Glad to hear the wii fit is helping out the guy
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Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
Look likes the Wii has done it again. I've been hearing good news about the Wii over the last few months. I've found out that the Nintendo Wii is probably the current console for excercising (I remember DDR and the PS2 and it's eyetoy were the exergaming back then) and rehab or should I say Wiihab. I remember back at NIH, I did a presentation on how the Wii helped people with Parkinson's Disease.
I wonder how Xbox 360's Project Natal and the PS3's Motion controller will help in the future. I wondered to myself if those can help with PD. I hope it can become true.
Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
Well, since both MS and Sony are planning their own "balance boards" for stuff like Tony Hawks, we may be seeing more of this in the future.
The Wii balance board has had suprising good support, especially when compared to some the Wiis other accessories (cough, Wiispeak, cough). And it only seems to be gaining. Right now, the three consoles are trying to find a balance (no pun intended) between classic controller games and motion capture.
We will have to see how that support will gain (or not) with Wii Motion Plus, Project Natal, and [whatever Sony called theirs].
Re: Wii Fit Benefits MLB Pitcher
Interesting point, since you'd think the WiiSpeak would be more popular. However, a lot of game companies won't make online games for the Wii in the first place, so the WiiSpeak would be almost useless.
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