Miyamoto: Wii Fit is Not Designed to Make You Fit

shigeru miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto was recently interviewed by Nintendo President Satoru Iwata about the Wii Fit project. Miyamoto revealed among others things that Wii Fit actually isn’t supposed to make you fit.

In the newest “Iwata Asks” column on Wii.com, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata interviews Nintendo’s legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto about his inspiration for designing Wii Fit and how the unique project came together.

“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.”

While the application initially was inspired by Miyamoto’s own obsession with his weight (he actually enjoyed tracking it with charts), eventually the decision was made to turn the balance board into much more than a glorified scale.

“I just thought having relationships like that within the family would be ideal. I know this may sound a bit extreme, but measuring your weight is fun, and there are ways to keep fit when thinking along those lines,” Miyamoto said. “Though we were trying to move in that direction, we couldn’t decide on what the next step would be and work came to a virtual standstill – until, that is, a staff member bought two scales, and found that it was pretty good fun to step on both of them at once and try to balance on them evenly. At that point, I asked the programmer to connect two scales to a computer and set it up so that your balance would be displayed on-screen numerically in a way that would be understandable even at a glance. When we did so, we decided to attempt to make measuring one’s balance a theme for the software. We were sure there were methods of keeping fit involving balance, and when we looked into it, they did indeed exist.”

GameDaily



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  • http://www.videogamedc.com potatoman

    then wtf is teh name about >=/

  • http://www.xanga.com/relaxing_roth Roth

    The original project name was Wii Health pack until E3 ’07 of course.

    I guess it’s a product that should inform the player about his/her body mass, and how well they’re improving in each play as it records stats.

    In other words, it’s a way to see how long and far you can jog in the safety of your home before you embarrass yourself in the real world, LOL~

    I think I’ll pick this up; it looks to be a neat tool for mass destruction! just buggin.. \:D/

    Haha, look at Miyamoto’s pose, he’s like “Hey! Don’t look at me!? I only designed it.”

    // Roth

  • http://sarahsbeautytips.com My Makeup and Skincare Reviews

    How hard is it to do that -Aunika <3