Press Scapegoat Wii Fit For Millions In Damages

by Kev Lochun on June 16, 2008 at 5:10 pm

Both mainstream and games press have reported today that UK women are breaking more than a sweat when it comes to Wii Fit. Trouble is, they’re all talking a load of cobblers.

Their reports are based on a recent study from women-only insurer Sheila’s Wheels, which apparently reveals that these female Wii Fittie Wannabes are hulking out on the balance board and have caused some £20 million of damage to their homes since launch, breaking vases, falling over cats and other such japery.

Thing is, not one of these sites, not even the one enjoying inflated traffic from N4G, has linked back to the original study – apparently the journalistic tradition of checking your sources has gone out of fashion.

So I dug up the original press release from the Sheila’s Wheels website. And when I said dug, I mean opened a press release from their media room. Wii Fit, £20.1 million of damage? You are having a laugh. Here’s the skinny:

” When it comes to exercising in the home, vases are the most commonly damaged item with just under 2.5 million women (8 per cent) admitting to smashing one. ‘The box’ is also in danger when it comes to indoor activities with 615,422 (2 per cent) women having damaged their TV set - many getting a little carried away on computer consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii, which requires handheld controls.”

This harks back to the Christmastime tradition of hurling your newly unwrapped Wii Remote into your TV/wall/friend’s face. Still has nothing to do with Wii Fit though. But wait, there’s more:

“The recent launch of the Wii Fit console saw a surge in the popularity of exercising at home, with a huge 86 per cent of the respondents already owning a Wii - or planning to buy one.”

So that’s it. Wii Fit equals exercise. Exercise equals damage. Therefore Wii Fit must equal damage. It makes no sense. These leaps and bounds in logic are the same which cause people to link gun crime and Grand Theft Auto.

The £20m damage figure doesn’t even appear in the main body of the press release. It is tacked on as an editor’s note, very much removed from that sole reference to Wii Fit.

“Headline - £20,155,080: Based on average cost of damage (£6.55) and UK female population estimates from CIA Government Data, 2008.”

But whatever I say, I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to do anything about the likely torrent of calls Ninty will get from the National Accident Helpline.

Source: Sheila’s Wheels media room

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