EA要做比《Wii Fit》更有趣的健身遊戲?
來源:
www.levelup.cn 時間:2008-10-30 編輯: 六段音速
最新一期的美國《男性健康雜誌》,也就是Take-Two主席Strauss Zelnick做封面的那一期,透露說EA準備推出自己的體感運動遊戲,與任天堂的《Wii Fit》爭奪非核心用戶市場。
根據GameSpot的報道,EA Sports執行製作人Dave McCarthy在一次採訪中透露,這家全球第二大的第三方發行商正在策劃開發自己的體感運動遊戲,相比《Wii Fit》更貼近西方人的運動偏好和身體特點。
McCarthy保證說,EA的這款遊戲可以比《Wii Fit》更好地調動用戶鍛煉身體的積極性。他還透露,這款遊戲可能將會讓用戶將遙控器手柄綁在胳膊或大腿上,模擬更為逼真也更加激烈的運動,上躥下跳應有盡有。
鑒於這已經不是我們第一次從EA那裡聽說他們有辦法讓大家保持完美體形了,所以實際效果如何還得有待進一步驗證。但不管怎麼說,要使用遊戲代替健身鍛煉,首先要面對的問題是如何讓用戶做到長期堅持,而這也正是連任天堂和《Wii Fit》都沒有解決的難題。
EA Sports looking to outsweat Wii Fit?
Posted Oct 28, 2008 5:06 pm PT By thorsen-ink
Source: Muscle-obsessed monthly Men's Fitness, of all places.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_bl...ic_id=26651877
What we heard: Last week, gamers perusing newsstands were flummoxed to find the Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick plastered on the cover of Men's Fitness. Typically the domain of ultimate fighters, professional athletes, and the occasional buffed-out rapper, the magazine decided to highlight Zelnick's cyclist and fitness enthusiasm as a way to segue into an article on games. Ironically, though, the executive isn't even mentioned in the piece, titled "Virtual Fitness: Tomorrow's Reality."
Instead, Men's Fitness correspondent David Kushner examines how two publishers are blending exercise and gameplay. The first, Nintendo, is fairly obvious, thanks to the triple-platinum sensation that is Wii Fit. Second up is Electronic Arts, which has been emphasizing the Wii with its family-friendly--and fairly controversial--line of All-Play sports games.
That said, the All-Play series' intent is to level the playing field between casual and hardcore gamers, not burn calories. That's where EA Sports executive producer Dave McCarthy comes in. Four months after first revealing that EA was pondering affordable, bundled peripherals for its sports games, the industry veteran elaborated on his employer's plans.
"We [at EA] think we can take a more Western approach to fitness, something a little more active that gets you moving," he said. McCarthy then described how EA is planning a new peripheral for an unnamed fitness game which will fasten Wii Remotes to players' bodies. Besides position, the add-on will help the Wii Remote "measure intensity, how strong your thrusts are, [and] how high you jump."
Currently, the Wii Fit board does not let players jump into the air but does let players squat and stand up quickly for its ski jump event. And while Wii Fit does let players hold the Wii Remote or stick it in their pockets to run in place, EA's peripheral will apparently be suited to a wider range of exercises. Players will use the device to "strap the remotes to their arms or legs to facilitate more athletic movements, from running to jumping jacks." As a consequence, the remotes will measure a "more authentic, full range of motions."
The official story: EA Sports reps had not returned requests for comment as of press time.
Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus. According to many critics, Wii Fit is an ambitious but flawed attempt to get gamers off their posteriors. Given its gangbusters sales, EA likely figures it has nothing to lose--and millions to gain--by working up its own workout game.
Q&A: EA Sports Active-ating Wii
By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot Posted Nov 13, 2008 3:02 pm AEST Peter Moore reveals first installment in his company's long-rumored fitness franchise, which will combine aerobics, nutrition, and resistance training in spring 2009 for $59.99.
http://au.gamespot.com/news/6201028.html
When Wii Fit launched last year, it was advertised as the perfect union between working out and games. Billboards nationwide dangled the prospect that anyone could tone themselves by gyrating on a new peripheral from legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto. Gamer religion meets physical fitness in a $90 box, if you will.
However, once people took Wii Fit out of its box, many were quickly disappointed. The game focused on the Asian model of fitness--stretching and balance--instead of the weight loss favored in the West. Only a few minigames offered aerobic exercise, and some of those had to be unlocked by playing other games for hours. The game's shame-based motivation and use of the widely criticized BMI metric made many-a-Mii droop their head by calling even stick-thin children obese.
Such critiques, though, have done nothing to dampen Wii Fit's popularity, especially among the "Blue Ocean" of non-gamers. The game has sold over 2.3 million copies domestically, according to the NPD Group, generating nearly $210 million in the US alone.
Wanting to get in on that massive payday, Electronic Arts today announced EA Sports Active, its long-rumored exercise game. As speculated, the title won't require the Wii Balance board at all, but will instead rely on a neoprene peripheral which will strap the Wii Remote or Nunchuck to a player's leg. The game will also come with a rubber resistance band for strength training when it launches next spring for $59.99.
In addition to over 20 sports, EA Sports Active will feature a range of fitness tools, including a calorie counter, virtual personal trainer, 30-day weight loss program, and customizable workouts. To learn more about how the product will work and the philosophy behind it, GameSpot spoke with EA Sports' outspoken president Peter Moore.
GS: So my question to you is, if somebody owns Wii Fit, why would they want to buy EA Sports Active?
PM: It's a completely different fitness experience. There's a different philosophy between the East and West about what fitness means, and Wii Fit does very well with some of what I'll call the Eastern philosophy of fitness, which is balance and coordination. But you're rarely in danger of breaking a sweat and getting your heart rate up. It's just not intended for that. We looked at that when Wii Fit came out and said, "How can we be complementary and yet differentiate and be more applicable, if you will, to a Western consumer who looks for a different fitness experience?"
So we immediately started building the product with a view to having a condensed time period in which you can get your heart rate up. It will measure your calories burned. It will measure time as you're doing things. Of course, the real secret to the whole thing is building a peripheral that allows you to attach the Wii Remote to your body and then reflects the motion of your body on the screen with an avatar. Then, tuning that and getting it right. We've been working on this for a long time now.
Not that there's anything wrong with what Wii Fit is doing. We just think the applicability of what Western consumers look for in fitness is difficult to achieve with the Wii Fit board.
GS: Are you saying that this won't require the Wii Balance Board?
PM: That is correct. It will not require it, but if you have one, we've got enough exercises in there that you'll want to put it in front of the TV and use it.
GS: So, if you just have a Wii, and you don't have Wii Fit, this is actually an alternative to Wii Fit?
PM: Absolutely, but it's great complement if you've got it.
GS: And I guess for those of you who maybe found Wii Fit too expensive, pricing wise, will this be generally more in line with a regular software?
PM: Absolutely. This is suggested retail of $59.95. You get the software, you get the two straps, you get the resistance band, and you get the nutritional booklet, all for the same price of a single game.
GS: OK. So we'll continue with that. But, first off, in terms of the peripheral, when I saw it, it was basically a little neoprene strap. I ride my bike to work every day and have something similar for my iPod, so I looked at it and said, "That's it?"
PM: Well, all that does on your bike is it just holds your iPod in place. We've spent a lot of time working with Nintendo on making sure it's snug, that it doesn't move, that it's not inadvertently hitting buttons on either the Nunchuk or the Wii Remote. Either of them can go into the pouch, so getting the pouch shaped right was crucial. So was getting the sizing right, as it will come with two strap sizes in the box, one large and one small.
The real secret is getting the remote snugly attached to the body through these straps. Then, obviously, the software recognizes what you're doing, and that's reflected on your character on the screen. It knows if you're going too deep in a squat or not going deep enough, and it knows if you're pounding away when you're running on the spot trying to catch up with two people on the track ahead of you. So that's a lot of the tuning we're doing here in getting this thing right.
GS: So, are you going to have any endorsements from celebrity trainers like Jillian Michaels?
GS: Bob Greene, who is Oprah's trainer, is endorsing the game and is helping us build the game out. He obviously will be a big link to that consumer, which is important to us, and we can talk about that in a moment. Then there'll be regular iterations of software updates that might be sports specific, or it might be body part specific, like your lower body, your upper body. Then we're also working with licensees to have a line of peripherals that would enhance the workout experience in front of the television. It's a pretty expansive product line--just not a singular piece of software--that will be constantly refreshed and added to as the years go on.
GS: Now you just said "product line"...
PM: Yes, think of EA Sports Active as a pretty comprehensive product line. It's not just software but peripherals as well. Down the road, there will be more of a total workout [title]. But you can imagine there's an abs version down the road. There's a soccer version down the road. So, EA Sports Soccer, EA Sports Abs.
GS: EA Sports Soccer? Is there the possibility of an EA Active FIFA or something like that? You could training with [Brazilian soccer star] Ronaldo or something.
PM: We're looking at that, but for this consumer, we're not quite sure. We know that the authenticity of the experience is more important than the authenticity of the visuals. I'm sure mom would love to train alongside Cristiano Ronaldo for a number of reasons. But I don't think that's integral right now.
Having said that, a couple of years from now, having Ronaldo or [Manchester United player] Wayne Rooney, or whomever in soccer be your trainer and doing something with them individually may not require the FIFA overall branding. Also, in terms of ways of making FIFA or Madden even more broad in reach, we could certainly look at that.
So, I'm not saying we're not going to use our licensed properties, but right now we're focusing on expansion of the EA Sports Active brand, bringing positive experiences into the living rooms for these consumers, and talking to a consumer we've never spoken to before.
GS: Now, you said there's EA Active and EA Active Soccer. Do you eventually see the EA Sports Active technology carried over into other Wii EA Sports games? Or are you sticking to EA Sports All Play?
PM: Yeah, I think right now our plan is to continue with our core business. In other words, if it's throwing the ball, we're already doing that quite a bit right now in our All Play stuff.
But it's a great question. Who knows, when the Wii Motion Plus comes, when we figure out really how much more sensitivity that gives us, what we can do. And I think the long-term vision, yes, is to make what you do in front of the screen as an individual be reflected in what happens in the game, and that's always been Nirvana for us in video game sports. But the technology really doesn't quite allow that yet.
But, yeah, the teams constantly look at where we will be five years from now. I don't think three years ago, if I had said we're going to be launching EA Sports Active and here's what it's going to be, you couldn't have even imagined it.
GS: So this comes with a packed-in nutrition book. One thing that struck me is whereas Wii Fit offers you that advice via piecemeal tips--"Hey, don't eat at night!"--this seems like it's going to be a much more kind of, I guess, for lack of a better term, personal trainer-ish approach.
PM: That's exactly what it is. It's a trainer in a box. My background is, as after working as a PE teacher for a number of years, I worked at Reebok building Reebok Step and Reebok Slide products. I know enough about this to be dangerous. I do not want people to think if you simply work out for 20 minutes doing this every day that all of a sudden the weight is going to drop off you if you then take a visit to the pizza parlor.
So this is about getting balance. We're going to try and help. Bob Greene is very good at this stuff. He's been very cooperative with us for months now in helping us think about this holistically and trying to help people out. We're going to be working with him both as an endorser as well as a very, very keen adviser, and he's very involved in the product line.
But, yeah, this is about balance. This is not only working out but also getting a little bit of whether it's portion control or eating the right foods, this is going to be done in tandem with nutrition. It's just not going to work on its own, that's for sure.
GS: There's a calorie counter as well, right?
PM: Correct.
GS: And apparently you can just randomize the exercises?
PM: You can do like a shuffle, but I think what most people will do is what I've started to do, is you can build custom exercise playlists. Imagine a playlist in music for workouts. Rather than just have an album, you build a bunch of songs that fit what you're doing. I do it when I'm running. I'll get something to get me going, and then there'll be some thrash metal in the middle, and then I'll probably come down to a bit of Coldplay on the way out.
I like to build the music for whatever mood I'm in for at the particular time, and we can do the same thing with EA Sports Active. I've already found myself building some of my favorite exercises. In there we've got cardio boxing. We've got cardio dance. We've got softball. We've got tennis. So, you can customize what you want to do or what exercises you think you need to do more of, as well as things like squats and lunges and running on the spot and all the other stuff.
So, there's a very strong customization level. There's a 30-day custom workout that we'll build for you, and we think the elements of personalization and customization are very important as well here, allowing you to do whatever you want to do. But at the same time, we'll give you a lot of recommendations, what we think is good for you.
GS: Another one of the things I found frustrating on Wii Fit, was a lot of the exercises I wanted to play, like snowboarding, were locked, and it took forever to unlock them...
PM: No, there's no locking here. It's applying a game mechanic to something that we think is a real experience. You'll go in and you'll set up a profile and then it'll ask you what you want to do as a workout. It'll give you right now, I think, three levels, so let's say, easy, medium, and high. Then the best thing to do is probably just go through all the exercises and say, "Boy, I like that," or "Boy, that was a little hard, but I know I need to do that."
Then, you can either let us do it for you, which we can do with our custom 30-day workout, or you can do this drag and drop. It's not easy to explain, but simply think of pointing that Wii Remote, clicking on an exercise that's a module, and dragging it down into your playlist. At the same time, we have a music player, and we have music embedded in there, so you can also pick what mood of music you're in, what speed of music you're in on a beats per second level, and what genre.
GS: Will that music be licensed through the EA Trax program or EA's Artwerk label?
PM: Yeah, down the road we will. Right now, it's relatively generic, things you'll hear in a gym, if you've ever done spinning classes and stuff like that. Stuff that is more based on beats than particular artists and gets a level and a rhythm going. But then, down the road, I think, yeah, incorporating stuff on EA Trax, a little bit of Airborne, which I don't know if you know those guys, but they'll get you going. Junkie XL is an EA artist and so, obviously, the ability to build mixes and have a real DJ feel to the whole thing is important. We got one of the best in the world as part of our label [Artwerk].
GS: You mentioned the "Oprah demographic." Exactly what demographic is that?
PM: Well, this thing is aimed at everybody, you, me, girlfriends, wives, kids, anybody can do it, but we've also learned in marketing that you've got to have a focus. If I were to target a sweet spot, it would be a woman in her mid-30s, maybe got a couple of young kids, finds it difficult to get out, likes the idea of getting a 20-minute workout right in front of the television. It's convenient to her. You'll see her featured a lot on our packaging when we start launching that.
GS: She's the model on the video, you mean?
PM: Yeah, well, she may or may not be in the packaging, but that type of person will be. But at the same time, when you flip the box over, you'll see dad, you'll see the boyfriend, you'll see the kids also taking part. So, if there was a target, yes, that's our target. But it's gender neutral, age neutral, fitness-level neutral.
GS: Is the inclusion and production of peripherals posing any challenges?
PM: We've got to make a lot of resistance bands and straps and get them shipped in and get them packed up. This is not a normal software launch by any stretch of the imagination! (laughs)
d鬼佬其實出呢類game都幾得意, 專for鬼佬地方用既, 如果對香港黎講, 一來唔係個個都有咁大間屋, 二來佢條片做到企定定黎做運動, 如果係咁我玩wii fit入面既game都夠啦...
呢隻game我覺得唔多掂, 可能外國地方可以賣得好, 但黎到香港就差d啦, 希望之後有更多片睇下就好啦~