Electronic Arts Prepares Wii Fit Challenger

Well, the stereotype demands that gamers do not read manly magazines like Men's Fitness, but the last issue to hit stands had a cover featuring Strauss Zelnick, the outspoken chairman of the board at Take Two Interactive, so we had to take a peek at it and see if there was any piece of advice on how you could lose weight and look good without ever leaving the comfort zone that we're created around our computers.

We didn't find any of that, as it seems that looking good is inexorably tied to exercising and a balanced died. What we found is a statement from a representative of Electronic Arts regarding their plans to take on the behemoth of fitness games that is Wii Fit. Dave McCarthy is an executive producer with EA Sports and he stated that “We think we can take a more Western approach to fitness, something a little more active that gets you moving” and that the company is looking at ways to use peripherals for the Nintendo Wii in order to “measure intensity, how strong your thrusts are, how high you jump”. In other words, Electronic Arts is working hard to create a fitness game that could be more appealing to Western audiences than the yoga of Wii Fit. The main idea is that the Wiimote itself could be used to track the motions that the player goes through.

Nintendo has really created a hit with its own fitness game, which manages strong sales each month and does not seem to be losing ground over more recent releases. The big thing about the Wii Fit is the way the Balance Board is used to perform a variety of actions that stimulate weight loss. If Electronic Arts manages to create a peripheral that is as intuitive to use and as powerful, then the publisher might find success in the tough world of fitness games, where no one has managed to challenge Wii Fit yet.