Wii Fit Store

It’s no secret that one of America’s biggest contributions to Western society has been fat people. And it’s spreading. Britain is becoming as bloated as our overseas friends and all it’s doing is giving Daily Mail readers more things to complain about.

Fortunately, Japan stepped in and gave us Wii Fit. It was the East’s way of saying, “Oh hai, you no can has cheezburger, you can has rice and exercise. It build small stomach, happy mind, rich experiences for all family!”

But some people just want to play cool games and not lose any weight. Here are four ways to abuse the fundamental principles of Wii Fit, without losing out on any of the balance board-fuelled fun. Go nuts (on nuts), podgesters! -Nate Lanxon

Here’s the full post from Gamasutra…

Gamasutra’s weekly column, “Saling The World”, covers the top five exclusively compiled real-time Amazon.com charts for every available platform in the United States, Japan, and Europe, providing an important update of sales patterns worldwide.

This week’s charts, with data taken from June 26th, 2008, find Guitar Hero: On Tour topping Nintendo DS sales in its first week of North American release, while Nintendo’s own first party music game Daigasso! Band Brothers DX leads portable sales in Japan. Data for “Saling The World” comes courtesy of the public sales information on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.co.jp, with sales split out for each platform and territory, and pre-orders disregarded.

This results in a true sense of what games are selling worldwide on the real-time updated service, as follows:

Nintendo Wii
North America: 1. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo), 2. Wii Fit (Nintendo), 3. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo), 4. Rock Band Special Edition (EA Games), 5. Wii Play (Nintendo).

Japan: 1. Tales of Symphonia: Ratatosk no Kishi (Namco), 2. Wii Fit (Nintendo), 3. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo), 4. The World of Golden Eggs: Nori Nori Rhythm Kei (AQ Interactive), 5. Super Mario Stadium: Family Baseball (Nintendo).

UK: 1. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo), 2. Wii Fit (Nintendo), 3. Big Beach Sports (THQ), 4. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo), 5. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Sega).

Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit continue to be the biggest sellers for Nintendo’s console in North America this week, despite long-standing supply shortages that have yet to be resolved. Amazon-affiliated third-party sellers currently demand a minimum charge of $60 for Mario Kart Wii, while Wii Fit ranges in excess of $170.

Also in high demand is this week’s debuting Wii port of Rock Band, which takes a fourth place weekly sales finish and pushes chart favorite Guitar Hero III out of the regional top five. Japan finds a new sales leader in this week’s release of Tales of Symphonia: Ratatosk no Kishi, meanwhile, as the just-debuted European version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl tops multiplatform sales in the UK.

Demand for the Wii Fit game has spurred thousands to buy the Wii while Nintendo tries to resolve the significant out-of-stock situation on hardware.

Injured athletes may find themselves playing Nintendo’s Wii Fit as part of their rehabilitation, said Sue Stanley-Green, a professor of athletic training at Florida Southern College in Lakeland.

Wii Fit video games that have the user perform lower-body balance and weight-shifting activities could gradually help patients with weight-bearing rehabilitation after an injury or surgery.

“We are looking to incorporate Wii Fit into the athletic training room as far as rehabilitation, for example, on post-operative knees and ankles,” she said.

Fitness video games that focus on upper body movement patterns could be helpful in the rehab center as well. Tennis video games, for instance, can be used to safely exercise the rotator cuff after injury or repair.

“Fitness-oriented video games are also being used more and more in nursing homes for rehabilitation,” Stanley-Green said.

Demand for the new fitness game has spurred thousands to buy the Wii, Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America. “We are back to a significant out-of-stock situation on Wii hardware,” he said.

Nintendo recently began ramping up its output of Wii consoles, to 2.4 million units a month from 1.8 million. That’s the fourth production increase since the console launched in November 2006. The increased supply is just now starting to trickle into retail pipelines, Fils-Aime said. However, the factories won’t be at full capacity until later this summer.

By John Lester
Jun 19, 2008 15:08 PM GMT