Gaming the Scale

If this year you wind up using a videogame to get in better shape, you will have to thank a sumo wrestler.

The idea for Nintendo's latest hit "Wii Fit"--a game that allows players to shimmy and twist their way through virtual worlds--only came together when Takao Sawano, general manager for Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division, saw sumo wrestlers weighing in for a match on television.

The sumo wrestlers were so heavy, Sawano told a crowd gathered at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco Wednesday, that officials needed two scales to weigh them. The tubby athletes would put one foot on each scale, with officials then adding the results together. The aha moment? Sawano realized he could track the amount of weight placed on various parts of a game pad to control a game.

The result is a sensation sweeping Japanese households, with families sweating their way through aerobics workouts and jogging down virtual mountain trails. Between Dec. 1 and the end of January, Nintendo sold a staggering 1.4 million copies of "Wii Fit," a bundle of fitness exercises and games that rely on a pressure-sensitive foot pad to track players as they sweat their way through workouts.

Nintendo said Wednesday that it would bring "Wii Fit" to the U.S. May 19 and to Europe April 25. It's expected to sell for less than $100.

Game developers are tracking the move closely after Nintendo surprised the gaming world by leapfrogging rivals Sony and Microsoft to grab the top spot in the worldwide game console market, thanks largely to the intuitive, motion-sensitive wand used to control the Wii console.

The footpad may seem like a logical next step for Nintendo. But Sawano said it wasn't obvious to Nintendo at first. The idea started with legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Nintendo's hit Mario Brothers games. Even before the Wii went on sale in November 2006, Miyamoto proposed that Nintendo players could use it as a scale to track their weight. His colleagues were dubious. Why would gamers want to check their weight?