Zumba for Wii?

As I was idly paging through a Reader’s Digest in a doctor’s office yesterday (there needs to be a provision in the health care bill to keep Reader’s Digest in business – what will doctors do without them?) the words Nintendo Wii jumped out at me, from an article about the creator of Zumba, the Latin-flavored dance workout craze.  How did I miss this?  I got home, hit the Google, and sure enough, there was a press release last August about a Zumba Wii game planned for next year:

Revolutionary Dance Fitness-Party^TM Lets Players Party Off the Pounds

EDISON, N.J., August 11, 2009 – Get ready to ditch the workout and join the Zumba^® movement! Majesco Entertainment Company (NASDAQ: COOL), an innovative provider of video games for the mass market, and Zumba^® Fitness LLC, today announced a partnership to bring the Zumba^® fitness experience to video games. This one-of-a-kind exercise program pairs Latin rhythms with red-hot international dance steps so you can have a blast as you party your way into shape. The first Zumba^® game will release holiday 2010.

Yes, that’s the same company that brought you the Jillian Michaels Wii games, making me less thrilled than if Namco or Konami or EA got on the Zumba wagon.  But Jillian 2010 is getting better reviews than the first game, and if Majesco is taking a whole year and a half to put Zumba together, hopefully the result will be worth it.  Something like a Latin-spiced We Cheer, with an actual calorie counter and customizable workouts, would really rock.

(But did they really trademark the phrase “fitness-party”?  I can’t have a fitness party without permission from Zumba’s legal department?  Did Zumba get permission from a certain fitness-party guru to party off the pounds?)