Rob’s Rants: Why I’m Not Buying Wii Fit
As we all know, Wii Fit is being released on May 19th. Nintendo's hardware/software fitness bundle has already sold out its pre-orders from retailers such as Gamestop, and it might be hard to find a copy early on. It's shaping up to be another massive success for Nintendo.
So why am I not that excited? Am I not usually on board with most of Nintendo's initiatives?
I don't doubt Wii Fit is a fine, polished product. And I'm not ruling out buying it at some point this year. But I'm not really that excited about it anymore. Why?
1. Peripheral fatigue.
I already own a Wii Remote and Nunchuck, actually 4 each of them! I own a Zapper and Nyko's awesome Perfect Shot. And I own some classic controllers (for friends playing multiplayer Virtual Console games) and a Wavebird Gamecube controller. I honestly started to strain under the thought of another hunk of white plastic hanging out in my small living room.
2. The gentle nature of the product doesn't excite me
From what I've seen from the demos, Wii Fit focuses on a sort of "Eastern Lite" version of working out, with yoga, step aerobics, and some trippy minigames. I'm not sure if I'd benefit from those sorts of exercises. I'm someone who, even though I'm a fat-fat-fatty, pretty much has to jog because I can never work up a sweat just walking.
3. I want to spend more time playing more traditional games
Ultimately, even though I have been very approaving of Nintendo's approach, I am in fact one of those awful core gamer guys. Yeah, maybe a core gamer who is a "fellow traveller" with the casuals, but I'm not a casual. Shoot, I just spent the past two weeks playing Shiren The Wanderer on DS- a game that has permadeath!
So, are any of you out there planning on taking the plunge, or not? And why? I'd love to hear your comments!
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
I just bought it last night. (See? I don’t hate Nintendo.) :)
It’s something different. I bought it for the same reason I bought the Wii in the first place. It is something different.
I had nearly forgotten that this thing is for exercise before I bought it. I treated it like a toy and played around with it for about 30 minutes straight before bed and I was surprised how tired I was.
I have never done Yoga before, but it turns out I kind of like it. It is relaxing and challenging. The board makes it doable though since it can give me feedback on whether I am doing it well where a workout DVD never could.
I think you might be right about it not being ideal for a “fatty-fat-fatty” (Though we have met and I would consider you husky at worst.) But maybe if you think of it as one more thing you do to get in shape then it seems more useful. I just lost about 30+ pounds and I still was straining to do the Yoga with good form and (embarrassingly) struggling at the push-up exercise.
I am not positive I can give an enthusiastic recommendation to spend the $90 (!!!) on this yet, but I can say it is interesting and I don’t feel super ripped off.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I don’t know what it is, because I have used “video game fitness” type things (like DDR) and enjoyed the heck out of them, but I’m just not feeling it with Wii Fit. I may get on board later on. I have a lot of confidence in Nintendo’s ability to make quality product- I don’t doubt it’s solid at least.
Also, I think the price is a big factor. What I would like to see is additional software support (other than Wii Ski, which seems a little bit like weaksauce from what I’ve heard). That’s what made the Zapper (or, since that isn’t a required peripheral, the idea of light gun gaming) so attractive: it didn’t take long for a nice handful of games from third parties to fill the shelves.
Thanks for your review of the product, though! Hopefully my readers will benefit.