Quote:
VB: And one of those new surprises is the Wii Vitality Sensor?
SI: The sensor doesn’t have a direct connection to Wii motion sensing. But let me say why we made an announcement about it at this time. Take the example of Wii Fit. When we talked about it two years ago, a lot of people thought the Wii Balance Board was crazy. They thought Nintendo would start selling a bathroom scale. But Wii Fit became a success because we saw a “blue ocean strategy.” But now a lot of companies are fighting in the red ocean of follow-up exercise games. [Note: As discussed in the Blue Ocean Strategy book, too many sharks in one area make a red ocean; but innovators who swim in the blue ocean have no rivals]. When we introduced the Wii controller, we were in the blue ocean and this year is still the blue ocean. But the year 2010 may become the red ocean for motion-sensing controls, based on what Microsoft and Sony say. The advantage for Nintendo is that we always try to do things that other companies don’t try to do. That is something that the general public appreciates. That’s why we have to introduce this Wii Vitality Sensor. A lot of people must be wondering what the hell this is about. But that’s exactly the way people felt two years ago with the Wii Balance Board. Looking at the history of video games, and game controllers in particular, you have always controlled it consciously. That’s what the name implies. Starting from the movements of your fingers to the shifting of the body mass, you always control it consciously.
VB: How is this going to be different?
SI: We have been trying a variety of different technologies and possibilities. We have found that a lot of information can be found through the pulse of a human being. The pulse is not the simple measurement of just your heartbeat. It provides a number of other signals through your body. It can show how your automatic nervous system is operating.
VB: Your nervousness or calmness?
SI: Not exactly that. Your automatic nerves. You can’t control it consciously, but your heart always beats. You may sweat. Your body may shiver. Those are signals of your automatic nerves. By trying to sense the nerves, it can tell a lot. The pulse can include this information. You may feel totally relaxed. Maybe you will play a horror game and the sensor can tell how scared you are. Several other things can be learned from the pulse, like if you are breathing in or breathing out. We may come up with interesting new software that we sell with the new Wii Vitality Sensor, much like we sold the Wii Balance Board with Wii Fit. Sometimes you are physically tired at night but your brain is functioning too much to go to sleep. If you can have software that helps you understand how you can shift from such a tense situation to being more relaxed, then that would help. At some point, what is invisible can become visible. You can learn your level of relaxation.
What we have inside the Wii Vitality Sensor is an optical sensor. It sends light through your finger and detects the amount of blood that it passes through. If there is more blood, the more light is blocked. We can calculate a relaxation level, through my heartbeat and my breathing in and breathing out. With yoga, they try to calm the nerves through meditation. If you can become conscious about it, you can control it. Some of our employees see their vitality go up at the end of the week because they may be looking forward to the weekend. Normally, this is invisible. A long time ago we sold something called a Love Tester. A boy and girl would shake hands to see how passionate they were. I think boys simply wanted to touch girls’ hands. There was no science behind this. Now we may be able to do a real Love Tester.
VB: I would guess you will talk about a game that uses this soon?
SI: You can see we are already working on a lot of this. Maybe we will announce the game next year.
SI: The sensor doesn’t have a direct connection to Wii motion sensing. But let me say why we made an announcement about it at this time. Take the example of Wii Fit. When we talked about it two years ago, a lot of people thought the Wii Balance Board was crazy. They thought Nintendo would start selling a bathroom scale. But Wii Fit became a success because we saw a “blue ocean strategy.” But now a lot of companies are fighting in the red ocean of follow-up exercise games. [Note: As discussed in the Blue Ocean Strategy book, too many sharks in one area make a red ocean; but innovators who swim in the blue ocean have no rivals]. When we introduced the Wii controller, we were in the blue ocean and this year is still the blue ocean. But the year 2010 may become the red ocean for motion-sensing controls, based on what Microsoft and Sony say. The advantage for Nintendo is that we always try to do things that other companies don’t try to do. That is something that the general public appreciates. That’s why we have to introduce this Wii Vitality Sensor. A lot of people must be wondering what the hell this is about. But that’s exactly the way people felt two years ago with the Wii Balance Board. Looking at the history of video games, and game controllers in particular, you have always controlled it consciously. That’s what the name implies. Starting from the movements of your fingers to the shifting of the body mass, you always control it consciously.
VB: How is this going to be different?
SI: We have been trying a variety of different technologies and possibilities. We have found that a lot of information can be found through the pulse of a human being. The pulse is not the simple measurement of just your heartbeat. It provides a number of other signals through your body. It can show how your automatic nervous system is operating.
VB: Your nervousness or calmness?
SI: Not exactly that. Your automatic nerves. You can’t control it consciously, but your heart always beats. You may sweat. Your body may shiver. Those are signals of your automatic nerves. By trying to sense the nerves, it can tell a lot. The pulse can include this information. You may feel totally relaxed. Maybe you will play a horror game and the sensor can tell how scared you are. Several other things can be learned from the pulse, like if you are breathing in or breathing out. We may come up with interesting new software that we sell with the new Wii Vitality Sensor, much like we sold the Wii Balance Board with Wii Fit. Sometimes you are physically tired at night but your brain is functioning too much to go to sleep. If you can have software that helps you understand how you can shift from such a tense situation to being more relaxed, then that would help. At some point, what is invisible can become visible. You can learn your level of relaxation.
What we have inside the Wii Vitality Sensor is an optical sensor. It sends light through your finger and detects the amount of blood that it passes through. If there is more blood, the more light is blocked. We can calculate a relaxation level, through my heartbeat and my breathing in and breathing out. With yoga, they try to calm the nerves through meditation. If you can become conscious about it, you can control it. Some of our employees see their vitality go up at the end of the week because they may be looking forward to the weekend. Normally, this is invisible. A long time ago we sold something called a Love Tester. A boy and girl would shake hands to see how passionate they were. I think boys simply wanted to touch girls’ hands. There was no science behind this. Now we may be able to do a real Love Tester.
VB: I would guess you will talk about a game that uses this soon?
SI: You can see we are already working on a lot of this. Maybe we will announce the game next year.
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I'm pretty skeptical about this, but if anyone can pull something like this off, it's got to be Nintendo. The Wiimote, the balance board, a two screened handheld system, and now the vitality sensor. They constantly surprise me, and they constantly do a good job with what they show off. I only wish it had an expansion port on it so I could play it with nunchuk + Wiimote games, as clumsy as it'd be.
That said, this thing seems a little creepy. xd It can make things visible that were not so before. This is why I love Nintendo. They keep changing it up.
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