Some medical professionals have argued that the actual fitness results one could achieve by using Nintendo’s extremely popular Wii Fit video game would be minimal at best.

Still, that doesn’t mean that someone on a mission to use Nintendo’s software for their fitness goals shouldn’t hire some professional assistance.

At the Trump Hotel, the luxury resort is offering guests a 55-minute gaming session using Nintendo’s Wii Fit, or Wii Sports with a personal trainer for just $90 (the same price as purchasing Wii Fit bundled with the Wii Balance Board).

Titled the “Wii Sports Package,” a trainer will even come up to your suite, and give you and your family a private demonstration of all of the sweat inducing mini-games.

Interesting.

I would love nothing more than some images of a Trump trainer instructing a guest on how to hula-hoop. Anyone have some to share?

JimmyKimmel’sTwitter

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You’re doing a simple workout using the Wii Fit software, thinking everything is going great.

Then, you fall off the board and become a sex addict. I know this has happened at least once to all of you, right?

Seriously, 24-year-old attention whore Amanda Flowers is claiming that a recent stumble off the Wii Balance Board caused her to spiral into a severe case of nymphomania. She claims she needs sex at least 10 times a day.

So wait, Flowers has developed cravings for sex multiple times a day? Is that not normal for a girl in her early 20s?

It makes you think, what was she using the Wii Balance Board for to fall off in the first place? Sounds like the whole chicken or the egg conundrum to me!

Destructoid

[Image: Jo Garcia, Playboy model, Wii Fit lover.]

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My what a difference a year makes. In May 2008, Nintendo launched Wii Fit in North America. Bundled with the new peripheral, the Wii Balance Board, the software became one of the best selling titles for the current generation, currently with about 23 million units sold.

Upon visiting my local GameStop this morning to trade the title in, I was awarded the lucrative prize of 2 dollars. Yup. The game is now worth $2 according to the retailer. Of course, I should blame Nintendo for releasing the game’s unfairly cheap follow-up, October 2009′s Wii Fit Plus. At just $19.99, it made my Wii Fit barely worth the cost of the packaging.

So thanks a lot, Nintendo. Now I just need to think of what to spend my 2 dollars on.

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It’s no surprise to anyone that New Super Mario Bros. Wii has done extraordinarily well for Nintendo’s Wii console, which had notoriously battled an uphill climb throughout much of 2009.  The mega-hit released in Japan on December 3rd, and sold 3,002,753 in just seven weeks time. Take that Modern Warfare 2!

Mario, Luigi, Toad and…Toad reached the 3 million mark faster than both Wii Sports and Wii Fit, which also sold over 3 million copies each. Now in its fourth year, and with a new Zelda, Metroid and Mario Galaxy title all coming this year, it appears the Wii has a lot of life left.

Kotaku

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Wii Fit is holding on to the third place for total game sales during the current decade, slowly encroaching upon Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Trends suggest that Nintendo’s exercise game would overtake GTA if not for the impending release of Wii Fit Plus. Nintendo chalks this success up to the inclusion of a peripheral, which also helps to explain the sales numbers behind the top selling game for the decade – Wii Play. Wii Play’s approximately 11 million units sold (compare to approx. 8 million for Wii Fit and approx. 8.3 million for GTA) likely says more about the public’s need for a second controller than the game contained within, yet still gives Nintendo some slick bragging rights as the minigame collection seats them comfortably in that number one position.

IGN
via GamaSutra

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You can forget that the Xbox 360 and PS3 both received price cuts in the last few weeks.  According to an interview with Nintendo of America’s Denise Kaigler, it was their intention all along to drop the price before the start of the 2009 Holiday season, regardless of the competition.

“We’re about to launch a couple of very strong titles,” said Kaigler.  “We announced [earlier] the launch date for Super Mario Bros. Wii. We just launched Wii Sports Resort. On October 4, we’ll launch Wii Fit Plus. With the great content that has already launched on Wii and is soon to launch on Wii, the timing is right to give consumers even more incentive to go out and purchase the industry’s best-selling home video console.”

Additionally, Kaigler noted that Nintendo is going after a group of 50 million eager consumers they believe reside in North America, all ready to pick up a Wii but haven’t due to circumstances.  They believe a price drop with great new software titles will equal the right incentive.

GameSpot

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Looking for Physical Education credit at the University of Houston? They’re now offering a class that centers around what the Wii has to offer. Now, this isn’t the first time schools have used the Wii in fitness-related activities, but I’ve never heard of a course being built around it! Here’s what the program’s coordinator, Jessica Wheeler had to say:

Our department conducts a host of research into the epidemic of obesity, not only its root causes, but ways to combat it and the diseases related to it. Using the Wii games can be both fun and an effective tool.  We anticipate that many students will want to take this class.

According to the NBC article, they’ll use games that “will teach posture, center of balance, and to improve knowledge of health and fitness.” Sound familiar? That’s because they’ll be using Wii Fit, along with Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, and Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party. It’s not all fun and games, though – students will still have to take written quizzes on health and fitness, as well as document their calorie intake and physical activities.

NBC Philadelphia
via Destructoid

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When you think about it, Wii Fit is missing one fairly obvious tool. A calorie counter. Specifically, a calorie counter that tells you how many calories you’ve burned doing various Wii Fit activities. Well, a web-based substitute has popped up. Enter your weight (in kilograms) and check how many sets of each activity you’ve done. The counter will automatically tally the total number of calories you’ve burned.

It’s in Japanese, but it’s pretty easy to figure out even if you can’t really read it. Check it out through the link below.

Wii Fit Calorie Meter
via Joystiq [Nintendo]

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According to NPD data, the Wii and DS accounted for more than half of all video game hardware sales last month. Over 600,000 Wiis were sold during March, which is down from March of last year. Of course, March ’08 saw the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which likely had something to do with that. The DS Lite managed to sell over 500,000 units, despite the looming DSi, which came out earlier this month.

As for software, Pokémon Platinum was the number 2 highest selling game at 800,000+ units, Wii Fit was number 3 at over 540,000, Wii Play was number 8 with 281,000, and Mario Kart Wii came in at number 9 with 278,000. What do all of those games have in common? With the arguable exception of Pokémon Platinum, they’re all really old. Nintendo certainly knows how to make games with legs.

In other sales news, the DSi is already selling more than the DS and DS Lite did during similar time frames after their launches, with 435,000 sold during its first week in North America alone. Comparatively, the DS Lite sold 226,300 units during its first week.

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Of the 203 finalists duking it out for a spot on TIME’s 2009 list of the 100 most influential people, one name will stand out to readers of this site. Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t really doing too hot, sitting at number 143 on the list with an average rating of 23 out of 100. Ouch. So why is he nominated?

The Nintendo maestro responsible for such classics as The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong scored yet another habit-forming hit with Wii Fit. Like his earlier games, Fit is visually buoyant, tactilely intuitive and highly lucrative, with 250,000 copies sold in the U.S. in its first week.

So he’s nominated for Wii Fit. Curiously, there’s not a single mention of Wii Music anywhere on the page. If you’d like to vote for him, make sure to check out the link below.

TIME

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Nintendo is partnering with Hitatchi, NEC, Panasonic and some unknown health insurance company to bring a new channel to Wii Fit owners in Japan. The (completely optional) channel will send information collected from Wii Fit to health professionals who will send personalized advice back to the user. The channel is said to have the option to send this data anonymously, and will be compatible with the balance board and pedometer. NEC’s cell phone health platform will allow users to connect to the service on the go and read their advice remotely.

The Check-Up channel is planned for launch this April.

Nintendo of Japan
via NeoGAF

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Oooh, those sneaky Walmart managers. It’s bad enough that the media makes so many women self-conscious about their appearances. Now they’ve got Wii Fit to remind them?

Not only that, but take a look at the details in this picture. A woman picking out some clothes (at always low prices, of course) and walk up to the mirror pictured above. She holds it up to her body. “Hm, does this make me look fat?” All of a sudden, she hears an ad from a fitness program conveniently placed right next to the mirror.

Nevermind the fact that there are quite a few people in America that need such reminders. This is amusing either way!

Kotaku

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A new report from FOX News (ah, there it is) says that doctors at Broomfield Hospital in Essex have noticed a 100% increase in patients with Wii-related injuries. Probably coincides with the increase in Wii sales…

Anyway, Wii-itis and Wii-elbow are just as common problems as they’ve always been, but some of the newer and increasingly common problems stem from users jumping right into Wii Fit. Overexerting yourself while bending the knee to do yoga can result is dislocated kneecaps and may require three months of treatment including cortisone shots and painkillers.

So remember kids: always stretch before your play video games. And if you feel pain, it’s probably a bad sign.

FOX News

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It hasn’t been easy (not saying that it has been particularly difficult either), but the Wii Fit Challenge has come to a close. Last week two of the competitors were locked atop the leader board, with yours truly  a little ways behind. Click over to see who came out on top as well as well as catch some reflections from the Fitters themselves. PS All official final weights were taken prior to Thanksgiving dinner.

Reflections!

Baby Kanga: After 12 weeks of focusing on what I was eating and trying to work out on a regular basis, I am very happy with my final results. I have lost a little over 10 pounds and have managed to keep them off, and my BMI has dropped 1.11 points. At the start of the competition my BMI fell in the borderline area between the normal and overweight range, and my Mii would fluctuate between the two weight classes fairly often. Now I am safely in the normal range, and have stayed that way for a majority of the competition. Now that the Challenge has come to a close, I feel much more flexible, and my stomach has noticeably shrunk in size. Whether or not I end up winning, I couldn’t be more pleased with how this little experiment turned out for me. I’m a winner in my own eyes.

Copper Crusader: You know, after spending an extended period of time with the unit, I don’t understand why the balance board and Wii Fit receives as much flak from the gaming crowd as it does. The title isn’t Wii Sweatiest Day Ever, it’s Wii Fit, and that is exactly what it does. It’s simply a tool to help motivated user get fit. Nothing more, nothing less. Overall, I would have to say I’m quite pleased with it. I live a pretty active lifestyle and would like to think of myself as being in decent shape, so when it came down to using the family friendly approaches of the balance board I didn’t know what to expect. Color me surprised. By the third of fourth week there were some legitimately strenuous activities unlocked, and soon my thirty minutes a session quickly ballooned over an hour. I may not have lost the most weight, but overall I would say that my level of health has definitely increased. Well done Nintendo, me likes. Next time let me set a series of exercises together though.

PWNie Boy: I think that Fallout 3 accounted for about as much of the weight loss as Wii Fit did. With all the skipped meals, sweaty palms (every bit counts), increased heart rate, ditched friends which led to loss of friends which led to crying over lost friends which led to loss of tear weight, and probably a few other things too. I just had something in my eye, I wasn’t really crying. Okay, but seriously, I dig Wii Fit. It forces me to exercise in many ways that I normally wouldn’t. People often complain that there is no real cardio portion in the game, and I say good. Everyone knows how to go for a jog or jump on a bike, Wii Fit fills in the gaps and helps make the user, well, fit. If you haven’t given it a try, I suggest you do. You might just wake up a little sore, a little more flexible, and a little more inclined to buy Sean White.

Final Results!

Well there you have it folks, Baby Kanga came out of nowhere with two weeks left to nab the cup right out from under PWNie Boy’s nose. In an effort to spite me, Wii Fit has refused to give me the satisfaction of losing a whole point off my BMI. Come on! Just spot me that much! That’s less than a haircut! Anyway, good work to all those who participated, and if there are any Wii Fit success stories out there, let ‘em out! I want to know!

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That said, Wii Fit should be perfect for us Asians, since fitness over in Japan where the game was made emphasizes maintaining physical health without working you too hard. Nintendo will finally be offering that service to those in Korea and Taiwan, where Wii Fit launches on December 6th and December 27th, respectively. It’s about time, too. After we had gotten the game back in May, I was beginning to worry if Nintendo would ever get those Korean MMORPG gamers away from their PC desk chairs and in front of their TVs to do their half-moon and breathing exercises.

Nintendo of Korea
via GoNintendo

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