Blog Archives
Your Shape demo video of its online support community
Ubisoft has posted a video demonstrating the online support component of the upcoming Your Shape: Fitness Evolved for Xbox360. It will let you access your stats from a computer (a guy is shown using an Ipad), post them on Twitter or Facebook, and view real-time stats for other players while you’re working out.
This looks like exactly what fitness video games have been missing all along. Yes, you can burn calories and feel good working out in your basement, but it’s difficult to meet your fitness goals in a vacuum, without support and a little friendly butt-kicking from others.
Your Shape is on Xbox360 only, but EA Sports Active 2 (on all platforms) and EA’s NFL Training Camp (Wii) will also offer online support.
If you wannabe a PS3 exergamer, get with Mel B.
Playstation 3′s new motion controllers hit the streets last week, to mostly good reviews. The list of currently-available games is rather slim. There are a couple of sporty games (Sports Champions, Racquet Sports) and family games (Eye Pet, Start The Party), but a noticeable dearth of fitness games.
There will be a Zumba game, EA Sports Active 2 and DDR coming out later on, but the first fitness game out of the gate for Move is coming from somewhat out of left field: former “Scary Spice” girl Mel B.
Mel has already made inroads in the video fitness biz with her workout DVD, Totally Fit. I have this DVD, and it’s pretty much your basic workout, set on a beach. Now Mel is moving to video games, with Get Fit with Mel B. coming out next week, September 28. The box blurb says “Only on Playstation” but Amazon also has an entry for a Wii version of the game, so we’ll see what happens with that.
Here is a trailer for Get Fit with Mel B:
It looks a lot like Your Shape, the ill-fated Wii game that came with a camera. Your Shape, originally $80, soon had its price slashed to around $20, and I believe it’s because its target market would rather see fitness pros on the screen than mirror images of themselves. (Remember all the furor over fattened Miis on Wii Fit?) That’s just my theory, but the new Your Shape for Kinect puts up a slim silhouette as your avatar rather than the real you.
I hope Get Fit with Mel B. turns out to be a good game, or at least isn’t left on the shelves like Wii’s Your Shape, because its rise or fall could very well determine whether more fitness games get developed for Move.
(Update: This game is still unavailable at Amazon. I stopped in at a Game Stop today and they told me they have it down for October 28.)
Your Shape exergame gives it another go on Kinect
When Your Shape came out for the Wii, it looked very promising, or at least different from other Wii fitness games: it came with its own camera, allowing for controller-free play nearly a year before Kinect was announced. But the game bundle’s price soon fell from $70 to around $20 on Amazon. Some possible reasons for the flop: the high price during lean times, the game not working very well, hostess Jenny McCarthy’s questionable medical advice, or (probably the biggest one IMO) the fact that most at-home exercisers just don’t want to see themselves on TV.
So the game is evolving as Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, this time for the Xbox360 Kinect accessory, although the $60 price for the game alone is nearly as much as the Wii bundle’s original price. I’m not that interested in workout-centered games, preferring to play fun games that just happen to make me sweat, but I think this new Your Shape looks really good, and seems to address the stumbling blocks of its predecessor.
First off, no Jenny or any other celeb host who could bring unwanted baggage. Instead, there’s an actual trainer, Michael George, best known to some workout DVD fans for his Beachbody Fast 10 series. And instead of working out to yourself, which is kind of creepy, you’re represented on the TV by a faceless silhouette. There looks to be a lot more variety and fun activities than the Wii game, and online support, something Wii fitness games were sorely lacking.
Here’s a preview and video walkthrough of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. Since it’s supposed to be one of Kinect’s 15 launch games, expect it in November.
Can Microsoft Kinect with the Wii folks?
The big M has finally unveiled the Xbox 360 motion controller system that was hinted at last year. It’s called Kinect, and consists of a camera and microphone that you plug into an Xbox 360 console. The camera picks up your motions, eliminating the need for a handheld controller, and the microphone recognizes your voice so you can speak commands at the menu. Here’s a demo video:
How Nintendo-ish can you get? And if there’s any other doubt that Microsoft has set its marketing sights squarely on E-for-everyone gamers, look at the 15 launch titles announced (courtesy of Kotaku):
Out of those 15, 4 are established exergame or fitness brands (Zumba, Biggest Loser, EAS Active, Your Shape), 2 more are dance games (Dance Central, Dance Masters), 3 more have “sports” in the titles, and Kinetic Adventures looks like an Active Life knockoff. Throw in a Game Party, a Petz type game, a Mario Kart-ish game and a Sonic game, and there you have it: a collection aimed squarely at the E-for-Everyone/gaming-for-health market. Wow, I couldn’t have done better if I’d kidnapped Bill Gates and put him under hypnosis! (After asking for his bank account number, that is.)
I would place my order today – if only I had a few hundred spare dollars lying around. MS is keeping pricing close to the vest for now, but if the rampant rumors are accurate, the Kinect add-on will be around $150. If you don’t already have an Xbox 360, the just-introduced slim version is $300. Microsoft now needs to figure out just how to pry open the wallets of Wii owners or wannabe-owners, and even minus the Great Recession, that’s no easy task.
The Wii has been around for nearly 4 years (in human years, it would be on Medicare), it’s sold about 28 million units, so by now, everyone either has one or knows someone who does. Like the iPod, the Wii became a roaring success due to creating “I want” and “I need” in markets where there never was any want or need before. Before 2006, what game console were senior centers or physical therapists dying to own? Who, besides hardcore DDR fans, made videos of themselves playing video games? Wii is more than just a console, it’s a culture.
And it’s a culture that Xbox for the most part has not been a part of. Until now, “Xbox” has been synonymous with hardcore, violent, complex gamer-games appealing to the young males who’ve mostly scoffed at Wii and active games. That name with its scary-sounding X has become shorthand for all that’s “wrong” with video games; Obama likes to scold young people with it. (Meanwhile, his daughters love their Wii.)
Can Microsoft overcome the negative image, switch gaming gears and make the softer side of Xbox appealing enough to make it this year’s must-have holiday gift? Well, when I started a thread about Kinect on a fitness forum, it got less than a hundred views in 2 days, while threads about Wii games get hundreds of views in that time.
Kinect’s got a long way to go from E3 to Mr. and Mrs. America’s den. I wish them luck.
