Nintendo Vitality Sensor has great potential

At E3 in 2009 Nintendo announced their Vitality Sensor and the video game world yawned. Just recently they have announced that they will be showing games for it at 2010 E3, that the device would be available to buy in Q4 ‘10 and the video game world yawned again. Which is a shame because it has massive potential. With the right software support it could be bigger than the balance board.

 

I disagree. It's a silly gimmick.

 

What does it do? What is this great potential?

 

On the face of it the Vitality Sensor is a very simple device that reads your pulse. It then sends this information, in a continuous stream, to your Wii console. This is called biofeedback. The console knows what effect it is having on you and can adapt what it does accordingly. The potential applications are infinite, limited only by the imagination of the development community. It is possibly the cleverest video game input device ever.

 

Surely it's also limited by what it can do? What's so special about this information?. How can this pulse data be used for entertainment?

Why? How is it cleverer than the wiimote or the balance board or a joystick?

I'm sure Nintendo have an answer to these questions but I'm puzzled by your statements without any examples to back them up.

 

Biofeedback is an area of science of some respectability which is currently going through a boom. The Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB) is the main body in the world advancing this science. Their website says: Biofeedback has evolved from a fascination in the 1960s and 70s to a mainstream methodology today for treating certain medical conditions and improving human performance. This evolution has been driven by years of scientific research demonstrating that the mind and body are connected, and that people can be taught to harness the power of this connection to change physical activity and improve health and function.

If you have any imagination you will be beginning to see the potential now. The Vitality sensor could be used as a pure gaming device, or as a pure health device. Or knowing Nintendo they will find some amazingly innovative way for it to do both.

Biofeedback in gaming goes back a long way. In about 1973 there was the bio-mechanical Will Ball Games from Charles Wehrenberg, which was about competitive relaxation. In 1984 he implemented it on the Apple 2 computer. He even wrote a novel about it which you can still buy at Amazon. In 2001 a company called Journey to Wild Divine created biofeedback hardware and software for the Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows. They are still at it and make a good starting point for anyone in the game industry trying to get up to speed. They say: With just a few minutes of practice each day, Wild Divine’s products can transform your computer into a beautiful and engaging experience of relaxation and balance, helping you to increase your energy level, restore balance and improve your ability to connect to the world around you in profound ways.

 

I'm guessing you're cutting and pasting this stuff from somewhere.

It all seems very woolly to me. How does the pulse make a game more fun or interesting? The Bio Tetris thing on N64 didn't set the world alight.

 

That sounds like hyperbolic waffle. No concrete examples of applications there at all.

With the Wiimote, people were quick to realise its potential - ooh, it's can be a sword! You can use it like a paint brush! You can use it as a racket! etc. I'd like to think I have plenty of imagination (It's what I'm paid for), but I'm struggling here. Help me out.

 

Some good stuff here: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=biofeedback+game&search_type=&aq=f

 

Do any of those games use the pulse? One was blowing and most seemed to use brain activity. I'm not too sure what the space invaders was because it was more a tutorial of the editor.

 

Wonder where

 

Care to narrow it down?

The ADHD, NASA one just seemed to be a way to punish children by making the game worse if they don't stay calm. Although I'm a little puzzled as to how the device could limit the top speed of a car in an off the shelf video game by messing with the controller.

The space invader one was unclear. What was the bio feedback doing and how did it help the game?

The whole mind control stuff (which has been around forever) is baffling to me. We already control game with our minds via our hands and bodies. Why do we want to bypass our hands? It might be impressive if you could think of something and it happened in-game but all the examples just like like very frustrating replacements for a joystick. Useless for anyone with working hands.

 

The same could be said for an interface with a single button, yet we have an entire keyboard, joystick, or mouse. Or heck, even a Novint Falcon.

Why is this any more special?

 

It isn't a button. It is biofeedback. More here: http://www.answers.com/topic/biofeedback

 

OK we all know what bio feedback is now. Please provide an example of a game that would be impossible or significantly worse without this device.

 

He can't.

So Eclectic is going to create a new thread on here for every single one of his blog posts? With exactly the same copy pasted content, exactly the same heading etc.? Wtf?

 

It's clearly more of a blag than a blog.

 

if you can't read, stop posting.

 

Bruce, real question now... Do you actually play videogames?

I know you worked in some companies and that you write about them a lot, but do you actually play them? I don't remember you ever talking about games you were playing even before you were banished from the private forums (though I could be wrong and therefore genuinely asking).

The way you were talking about Evony seemed to indicate that you practically know nothing about MMOs, browser games and microtransaction models. This thread makes me wonder about that even more.

Do you play games? Any games? Even "just" bejeweled or zuma. Anything? Do you own a games console (not work related)?

 

Reggie Fils-Aime explained that the Vitality Sensor is just the latest in a chain of products that are first misunderstood and ridiculed, gaining acceptance after having a chance to prove themselves, like the DS, or the Wii, or the Balance Board. Pretty much everything, actually:


[We] probably had a very similar conversation when we first showed the Nintendo DS: how is it going to work, why a touch screen, voice activation—I don't get it. We probably had a similar conversation about the Wii Remote: how is this going to work, how is it going to work with the games that I want to play—I don't get it. Now I'm hearing something similar for the Wii Vitality Sensor. And all I can tell you is, with the game developers that we have, we will bring forth an experience that you will say, Wow, I get it.