Wii Fit - Not for Purpose?

Wii Fit' imminent arrival outside of Japan is generating a massive PR and marketing campaign. One part of this came as a bit of a surprise to us. According to Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, "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".

Strange that it should be called Wii Fit (or Wii Fitness, or whatever you want to dub it...) then. Maybe Wii Body Aware was considered too long winded, but an advert with Nicole Kidman becoming aware of her body would have been fun...

Miyamoto was speaking to president of Nintendo Satoru Iawata on an official Nintendo Wii site in order to clear up a few issues regarding the game prior to its extra-homeland assault in April.

It also appears that Wii Fit's genesis was not entirely in the fertile brain of the Miyamoto-san. Although Shiggy came up with the initial concept, which was more to do with having fun by weighing yourself, it was down to Takao Sawano, general manager of the entertainment analysis and development division to come up with the idea of the balance board. At least that's what we're lead to believe from his GDC presentation.

Miyamoto's initial idea for a Wii-related scale didn't appeal to Sawano. "It was a proposal that raised doubts almost immediately", he told the conference. However, combining the scale idea with a Sumo-inspired revelation lead to the Balance Board we all now nearly know and love (or curse).

Okay... as we understand it... Sawano saw that Sumo wrestlers had to be weighed using two separate scales. This apparently lead him to realise that then the same principle could be applied in one board containing separate pressure points.

This resulted in the pressure-controlled Balance Board that, according to Sawano means that "...it is now possible to go beyond the fingertip controls of past games and now use your whole body". This, in its own turn has lead to Nintendo asking developers (other than Namco Bandai with its, currently Japan-only, Family Ski game) to make more use of the board.