Wii Body Awareness Mechanism – Also Known As Wii Fit – Not About Fitness

by Dylan Duarte on February 14, 2008 at 4:01 am

Wii Fit Helps Cartman Understand His Body Image

In a recent interview with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, Shigeru Miyamoto admitted that Wii Fit isn’t designed to make you fit at all.

The project came about through Miyamoto’s own obsession with his health and weight and he admits to actually enjoying tracking his weight through the use of charts. He thinks that maintaining your health can be fun for the entire family.

So it was decided early on that Miyamoto and his team would focus on fitness, but just how they would go about it was still up in the air. Then one day, a staff member brought two scales into the office and was trying to stand on both at once while trying to keep them even. This led to the idea of using balance as a central theme.

It was at that point that Miyamoto made it his personal mission to see this game through. Scale manufacturers that they discussed the project with didn’t show much enthusiasm, so they decided it would best if they just made the accessory themselves. The testing began and they eventually settled on the idea of having four balance points: front, back, left, and right. By the end of the process, the balance board became more than a scale and grew into its own.

Finally, Miyamoto expressed what he felt was the game’s true purpose.

“I don’t think Wii Fit’s purpose is to make you fit; what it’s actually aiming to do is make you aware of your body.”

In keeping with the personal image theme, perhaps Nintendo can come out with a Wii Bulemia game, where you stick the Wii Remote down your throat and hop on the balance board. I think that would go over well with certain crowds.

Via GameDaily

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