N-Sider: Reggie mentioned that there were other Balance Board games in the works. Might Wii Fit and the Balance Board get separate release in the future?
Eric: You know, we haven't announced any plans to do that. There has been a lot of developer interest in the Balance Board, and I'm excited to see if anything comes of that. It's a very exciting game controller, it's almost kind of another next-gen game controller experience. And it'll be cool to see how that works, and for the time being, we're looking at Wii Fit and the Balance Board being a package, you know, Wii Fit is kind of the "killer app" for the balance board.
But the Balance Board itself is a pretty amazing piece of technology; and there's so much in the board that I didn't even realize had gone into it. The amount of hardware they were able to pack into that is incredible. Another thing about Wii Fit, kind of like Wii Sports, is seeing someone play it and actually playing it for yourself is two totally different things. A lot of the core gamers, you know, guys that check out your site were already excited about it, and a lot of people were like "oh I don't know, I wonder what that's going to be like", but then, as soon as they picked up the controller, they were like "oh, I get it".
N-Sider: When we played Wii Fit at E3 in July of last year, we noticed a lot of the games were geared towards weight loss or keeping healthy; Is Wii Fit being marketed to those who are say, overweight and trying to be fit, or can you be underweight and trying to buff up?
Eric: It's interesting about Wii Fit, as it really is a game for everyone, and we throw that term around a lot, and some people see "everyone" as everyone but the hardcore gamers, but I think everyone here sees Wii Fit being a huge potential for the mass market, and we're really excited about that. But I've also been really impressed with some of the response here, seeing some of the editors, and getting the hardcore gamers in here, and having them being genuinely excited about playing.
I think some of the stuff that's really changed, and not that the focus of the game has changed, but our understanding of the game has changed, and so it's going to be cool to show some of the personal profile stuff that's going on. But to answer your question a little bit better, We're not making any specific health claims with Wii Fit, we're not saying it's going to do this or going to do that, but what we're hoping it does, is start that conversation. Get people thinking about getting fit, and getting people more aware about fitness, and more into that, and start something with Family, or friends, or roommates, then we think that could be really cool.
N-Sider: Is Wii Fit something you can realistically use with shoes on?
Eric: Our recommendation is no; there's a lot of games that, if you have your shoes on, will reduce the accuracy of the way the Board works. There's many different reasons for that, but I find going bare foot is the best way of doing it. Not only for the grip reasons, but there are strength training exercises, yoga exercises, and you're working your muscles by using balance. And getting on the balance board, you realize that it's a lot harder than it looks. Once you add the component of not just doing the motion, but doing it while perfectly still, it's a totally different experience all together.
N-Sider: Tell us more about the channel that Wii Fit installs to the Wii Menu.
Eric: Wii Fit is one of the first games to have a channel installed from a disc, not the network. And what this does for you is, for example, if you're playing Galaxy a lot, and Wii Fit is about coming back to it daily, and not just playing every day, but doing your body test every day.
The body test is an important part of your daily play, and what that's going to do is with this channel, you'll be able to complete your body test without having to replace your disc in the drive. All you do is click on your Wii Fit channel, you can do your body test without having to rifle through your games, and we want to eliminate that barrier so that people can get their body test done as fast as possible. Now, if you want to actually train, or do exercises, you need to put the game disc in.
N-Sider: Do you think that retail games installing channels will become a trend? Can we expect it from future Nintendo titles?
Eric: You know, I actually have no idea, but it's pretty exciting for this game.
N-Sider: WiiConnect24 is a sort of under-utilized feature at the moment, something that was really hyped when it was first unveiled, but it's not made many appearances since. Was there any consideration to let friends in different homes compete by comparing their stats?
Eric: I totally understand where you're coming from, but we're not announcing those kinds of features right now, but I think what Wii Fit is about, philosophically, is getting people locally to think about fitness, like you know, it doesn't use WFC, and I think part of that is you can see whole families coming together and working on their exercises every day. I'm sure that some of those communities will pop up online anyways, once the game comes out you'll see competition like that on message boards, with people sharing their BMI, but right now we're really focusing on the local stuff.
N-Sider: Will the North American version of Wii Fit support both imperial and metric measurement systems?
Eric: I'm not entirely sure at the moment, I think we'll take that into consideration, but currently, we'll have many different languages and we'll take that into consideration.
N-Sider: Recently we saw Reggie playing Wii Fit in one of the conference rooms at GDC with a handful of people, has his BMI improved since E3?
Eric: You know, I don't know what his BMI is, and I definitely don't want to speak on his behalf, but I know he has a lot of fun with the game, and we're all expecting it to do well.
Eric: You know, we haven't announced any plans to do that. There has been a lot of developer interest in the Balance Board, and I'm excited to see if anything comes of that. It's a very exciting game controller, it's almost kind of another next-gen game controller experience. And it'll be cool to see how that works, and for the time being, we're looking at Wii Fit and the Balance Board being a package, you know, Wii Fit is kind of the "killer app" for the balance board.
But the Balance Board itself is a pretty amazing piece of technology; and there's so much in the board that I didn't even realize had gone into it. The amount of hardware they were able to pack into that is incredible. Another thing about Wii Fit, kind of like Wii Sports, is seeing someone play it and actually playing it for yourself is two totally different things. A lot of the core gamers, you know, guys that check out your site were already excited about it, and a lot of people were like "oh I don't know, I wonder what that's going to be like", but then, as soon as they picked up the controller, they were like "oh, I get it".
N-Sider: When we played Wii Fit at E3 in July of last year, we noticed a lot of the games were geared towards weight loss or keeping healthy; Is Wii Fit being marketed to those who are say, overweight and trying to be fit, or can you be underweight and trying to buff up?
Eric: It's interesting about Wii Fit, as it really is a game for everyone, and we throw that term around a lot, and some people see "everyone" as everyone but the hardcore gamers, but I think everyone here sees Wii Fit being a huge potential for the mass market, and we're really excited about that. But I've also been really impressed with some of the response here, seeing some of the editors, and getting the hardcore gamers in here, and having them being genuinely excited about playing.
I think some of the stuff that's really changed, and not that the focus of the game has changed, but our understanding of the game has changed, and so it's going to be cool to show some of the personal profile stuff that's going on. But to answer your question a little bit better, We're not making any specific health claims with Wii Fit, we're not saying it's going to do this or going to do that, but what we're hoping it does, is start that conversation. Get people thinking about getting fit, and getting people more aware about fitness, and more into that, and start something with Family, or friends, or roommates, then we think that could be really cool.
N-Sider: Is Wii Fit something you can realistically use with shoes on?
Eric: Our recommendation is no; there's a lot of games that, if you have your shoes on, will reduce the accuracy of the way the Board works. There's many different reasons for that, but I find going bare foot is the best way of doing it. Not only for the grip reasons, but there are strength training exercises, yoga exercises, and you're working your muscles by using balance. And getting on the balance board, you realize that it's a lot harder than it looks. Once you add the component of not just doing the motion, but doing it while perfectly still, it's a totally different experience all together.
N-Sider: Tell us more about the channel that Wii Fit installs to the Wii Menu.
Eric: Wii Fit is one of the first games to have a channel installed from a disc, not the network. And what this does for you is, for example, if you're playing Galaxy a lot, and Wii Fit is about coming back to it daily, and not just playing every day, but doing your body test every day.
The body test is an important part of your daily play, and what that's going to do is with this channel, you'll be able to complete your body test without having to replace your disc in the drive. All you do is click on your Wii Fit channel, you can do your body test without having to rifle through your games, and we want to eliminate that barrier so that people can get their body test done as fast as possible. Now, if you want to actually train, or do exercises, you need to put the game disc in.
N-Sider: Do you think that retail games installing channels will become a trend? Can we expect it from future Nintendo titles?
Eric: You know, I actually have no idea, but it's pretty exciting for this game.
N-Sider: WiiConnect24 is a sort of under-utilized feature at the moment, something that was really hyped when it was first unveiled, but it's not made many appearances since. Was there any consideration to let friends in different homes compete by comparing their stats?
Eric: I totally understand where you're coming from, but we're not announcing those kinds of features right now, but I think what Wii Fit is about, philosophically, is getting people locally to think about fitness, like you know, it doesn't use WFC, and I think part of that is you can see whole families coming together and working on their exercises every day. I'm sure that some of those communities will pop up online anyways, once the game comes out you'll see competition like that on message boards, with people sharing their BMI, but right now we're really focusing on the local stuff.
N-Sider: Will the North American version of Wii Fit support both imperial and metric measurement systems?
Eric: I'm not entirely sure at the moment, I think we'll take that into consideration, but currently, we'll have many different languages and we'll take that into consideration.
N-Sider: Recently we saw Reggie playing Wii Fit in one of the conference rooms at GDC with a handful of people, has his BMI improved since E3?
Eric: You know, I don't know what his BMI is, and I definitely don't want to speak on his behalf, but I know he has a lot of fun with the game, and we're all expecting it to do well.