Nintendo announces Personal Trainer: Walking for Nintendo DS
As Nintendo’s ongoing success in the games industry proves, having the most powerful pixel processing hardware isn’t everything when it comes to appealing to the mass market. Games such as the hugely successful Brain Training, and the 18.22 million selling Wii Fit, have enabled Nintendo to position itself very much as a lifestyle brand, with software that aims to improve, as well as entertain.
Nintendo has added yet another feather to its lifestyle cap with new title, Personal Trainer: Walking, for DS, promising to “turn an ordinary activity like walking into a fun daily adventure.” Part of the Personal Trainer series, which so far includes titles to improve cooking and mathematical skills, the new Personal Trainer enhances walking, by combining it with interactive activities and statistics on the DS.
Statistics come in the form of charts which Nintendo are saying can reveal “life rhythm” patterns, such as when the most active and sedentary moments of the day are, in order to plan for more or less activity in future days. Days can also be rated, based upon the amount of activity, or daily walking goals can also be set to encourage more activity.
Activities in the game include Illuminate, which allows users to brighten up a virtual town, and Walk the World, which converts footsteps in images of interesting locations around the globe. Avid walkers can also share their data over the internet, combining it with other users step totals to virtually space walk to other planets. The game also allows users to import Mii characters from the Wii, as well as design one on the DS when creating profiles.
Walking comes bundled with two activity meters, which count and record steps over time, and sync to the DS, where the data is analysed and
presented. The activity meter can store up to seven days worth of data before needing to be synced to the DS, which itself can hold up to five years of data. Information for up to four people can be stored on one copy of the game. Nintendo also indicated that the activity meter could be attached to a pet’s collar to track the activity of owner’s animal companions.
Check out the source at GameSpot
Tags: brain training, DS, footsteps, interactive activities, lifestyle brand, mathematical skills, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, personal trainer, space walk, virtual town, walkers, Wii, Wii Fit