EA to get into the fitness game…
Posted by pogowolf on May 12, 2008
Fitness game.. HA! you get it? huh? did you? Well fine.. ANYWAY…
EA figuring there’s money to be made in the whole play games as a diet craze that’s starting to hit the Wii (Come on people. Moving around burns calories. Burn more then you take in.. you lose weight!!)
But [Eurogamer] is saying that Peter Moore wants to make you sweat, where as that concepts scares the holy jeebus out of me.. I’ll push though the fear to continue writing.
The newly created ‘Freestyle’ sub-division of the EA Sports divisionis working on a new game that will utilize the Wii balance board and focus on more ‘Western’ cardiovascular workouts.
Peter Moore went on record at the EA Sports showcase stating:
“We’re watching very closely what the Wii Fit board does,” he said. “We think we have to have a role to play with that mum – the kids have gone to school, she’s got 45 minutes on her own, the Wii is there, it’s the first console she’s ever liked because she can do things herself. And we’re working on stuff, trying to work out how we can use EA Sports applications there.”
“We also need to make sure we’re delivering something that’s truly exercise. I’ll call [Wii Fit] more eastern fitness, where it senses weight and balance, like Tai-Chi. It’s more about holistic fitness. I don’t think the board is going to take a pounding. We need to look more at western fitness in which I can actually be moving and start to sweat a little bit, and that’s what we’re working on right now.”
“It can’t feel like a workout, The team has to figure out, how do I smile while I’m doing this? You play soccer for 90 minutes; if I say you’re going to run five miles you’re not gonna want to do that. But you run for five miles playing soccer and you’ve had a good time.”
“The difference is you’re distracted. We need to distract people and not make this exercise feel like work, but like they’re having fun. So mini-games, things where you’re actually laughing out loud, that’s the stuff we’re working on. It’s something I’ve always been passionate about, and who better than us to go and play in that market?”
