Iwata: Vitality Sensor delayed until it works with 99% of customers

by JC Fletcher on May 3rd 2011 12:45PM

In the recent investor Q&A, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that no, the insane Vitality Sensor peripheral hasn't been cancelled. Nintendo just ran into a small problem -- human bodies are weird and unpredictable.

"This is a totally new type of entertainment," Iwata told investors, "and there are large individual differences in the biological information of humans. For example, if it was acceptable that only 80% of the users thought the result was natural, then we could propose this to consumers right now. However, we are aiming for a level of quality in which 99% percent of consumers feel comfortable, and that is why this project is taking time to complete." We suppose that the Vitality Sensor would be even less fun than most of us imagine if it didn't even sense properly.

The variation in feedback is apparently a major hurdle. While Nintendo's not giving up, Iwata warned investors that "now I cannot clearly say when we will be ready to put this on the market." And though he didn't mention it, Nintendo will likely face another hurdle thanks to the delay -- having to adapt the Vitality Sensor to work with a new console.

Source: Nintendo

Tags: delays, nintendo, satoru-iwata, vitality-sensor, wii

Reader Comments (60)

But I want to finger my console now.

Here's a nice little question: what is this FOR? Aside from more generic exercise games and maybe horror games, what about the other 95% of games out there?

@PointlessPuppies It drains your physical health to add to your virtual, in-game health when you're low.

@PointlessPuppies Well those would be good ones so there's that. Wii balance board for existence is debatably more capable.

I could see the same for shooters as well. Get your heart racing, you gain focus due to adrenaline, go TOO high and bam you're on edge and lose capability.

@houser

how would you use a controller at the same time?

@eat it
you! are the controller.

I think the headline was supposed to read "Vitality Sensor Delayed Until 99% Care About It."

No, but seriously, Nintendo.

I'm not playing video games with that f*cking thing clamped on my finger.

@Urethra Alfredo

...that's what I wanted to say :(

@Urethra Alfredo

The clamping thing is probably just a prototype. They'll develop it into the controllers like the metal bar you hold on to on the treadmill at the gym.

@Urethra Alfredo
Yeah exactly. You can't even use this thing with a nunchuk. Unless it can clamp to your dick?

@Brodo

You could be on to something there, maybe the 1% that it currently doesn't work with are female gamers

@Urethra Alfredo more like until anyone cares about it

@Brodo

Whoa, Brodo, I think you revealed too much. I'm not particularly well-endowed and even I couldn't clam something on my wang that was made for my finger.

@oOWallaceOo

more like it doesn't read black people

I'm just waiting on one of those ultra sound devices

@eat it

Is that the machine that goes "PING?"

That... that's still happening?

I thought they realised it was one of the worst ideas for a peripheral ever and gave up.

I wouldn't have thought they were instead investing even more money into its research...

But seriously, what market is there for this??

@lSpam

"But seriously, what market is there for this?? "

The point of this thing is to attract non gamers. Thats Nintendo's whole blue ocean, expanded audience bit. Thats how they've been making gobs of cash for the last few years.

Once they've attracted a new audience, which they did with wii sports and brain training or whatever, those people are no longer non gamers and Nintendo needs to find the next frontier.
Nintendo thinks that one of those posible new frontiers are people who find video games to stressful, and this thing is designed for them.

This will be for health related lifestyle games more then the cinematic games that have been popular for the last 10 years or so.

@Urethra Alfredo

Anything with "rape axe condom" in its filename is bound to be more trouble than it's worth.

Ha ha ha, this thing! The Wii is going to be dead and gone and I'm still going to be reading about the vitality sensor "coming soon!"

this is never going to come out, it wouldnt be the first time Nintendo shows off something then never releases it

If this releases, I doubt that it's going to be a hit. The only use I can see with this is a "Stay calm!" game where the sensor tracks your blood pressure and you have to stay calm while flashing, disturbing, horrible, agressive, mental photos flash on the screen while shouting, loud, creepy, violent music plays.

@dylanspronck

What if the vitality sensor took into account how stressed you were while playing a FPS and mapped the amount of movement when aiming down the barrel to the amount of stress you were feeling to give a more realistic shooter?

@Morisato13

OH! or how about a stealth-like game such as MGS where the vitality sensor input would control how loud your breathing was. Realistically, would an extremely nervous stealth operative be all that good of a stealth operative?

i still think this is a long over drawn out april fools joke.

Vitality sensor, cancelled because it's shit.

The Wii 2 is going to come out before the vitality sensor...

Haha

Read between the lines people. "We're putting this on hold until we can figure out what to do with it."

Stop teasing us, Nintendo! My vitality ain't gonna sense itself!!!!!!

They did this with the Nintendo 64. I don't get this. They did a sensor that clipped on your ear, and was for Bio Tetris. It was released only in Japan. Was it not as sensitive as this one?

As this point in time, this is an accessory that is unlikely to succeed in anything, and at the end of the system's life, it will come out, and immediately fail, because it probably won't get but one game that uses it. Unless they decide to make it work with the next system.

Given the issues involved in physiological interaction, aiming to support 99% of your player base is an unrealistic goal to have as a game designer. For one not everyone's physiology responds in the exact same way (e.g. not everybody's heart rate increases to similar stresses).

As such if this is the approach Nintendo is going to take to the device I can't see it being released in the foreseable future, which as a researcher in this field is kind of disappointing to hear.

While relaxation games aren't everyones cup of tea there are variations which can be quite engaging (e.g. competitive relaxation, imagine you could only gain speed boosts in a racing game by relaxing, rather tricky given the environment thereby adding a new dimension to the game challenge).

You can find out more about why 99% is an unrealsitic figure here
http://www.physiologicalcomputing.net/wordpress/?p=1481

@justkiel

>competitive relaxation

wtfamireading.jpg

@Anticrawl

Its not as daft as it sounds. The traditional approach to relaxation games (i.e. therapeutic) is to use the player's innate level of stress to control the games level of difficulty. However you can also engineer the game environment and social situation to provoke stress on purpose instead of relying on the player's innate level of stress. If you add a reward to the successful control of the measure being used to infer stress (e.g. heartbeat rate) it can add a new dimension to play when used in antagonistic environments such as a racing game.

@justkiel

On the one hand, that's a brilliant idea for a practical application of the device, and with a little bit more imagination it could be extended to other genres to make the gameplay a bit more interesting.

On the other hand, well, heaven help us all if the boys at Valve ever get their hands on the device, because you KNOW the first thing they'll do is program GLaDOS to use more of the insults that she will then be able to know work best against you.

@justkiel

Just may have found a new blog to read if that post is representative of this blog.

Can you give me a general idea of how much the blog relates to gaming, or basic summary of the blog, because as a gamer and a medical student, some physiology that's interesting (ie not taught in the most boring way possible - as happens with most physiology lectures) could be an interesting way to combine the two (while maybe learning something clinically relevant as well - the great excuse as to why a season of House in 3 days is acceptable).

@mrmobius

Still learning the commenting format :) My response is further down.

Interfacing with the system isn't the major hurdle, I'm guessing-- once you have the data from the sensor in a format that makes sense, transforming it is a trivial task. I suspect that there's some issues with skin types, thicknesses, scars/calluses/etc. causing trouble here.

Yes, I am *deliberately* missing the point of the snarky last sentence.

Please nintendo cancel this thing. I mean really what will this add to games? I'll take 3D over this....

Um, excuse me Mr. Iwata...99% of your customers don't care about this.

Haptic touch screen (tactile feedback technology that takes advantage of a user's sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the user) + vitality sensor incorperated into the screen would make for some interesting ideas.

@TwEE

If implemented effectively and affordably, yes, but I've yet to play a Nintendo first-party game this generation that has been able to make me really CARE about it through basic storytelling, so trying to bridge that gap with expensive techno-crap seems like unecessary overkill when they really need to get to the root of the problem when it comes to immersion.

Or, you know, they could just apply it to a bunch of shitty tech demos and charge $50 for it. Whatever works, I guess.

@TwEE

I was thinking more along the lines of feeling fur of a nintendog or cat and having them respond to your "emotions"... or you know, interactive porn.

"but I've yet to play a Nintendo first-party game this generation that has been able to make me really CARE about it through basic storytelling"

And thats probibly a good thing, all Nintendo's greatest games had little to no story.

@TwEE

You say that like it's something to be proud of. It isn't.

@TwEE

"You say that like it's something to be proud of. It isn't. "

It is something to be proud of.

I do understand a lot of gamers are embaressed by video games and want the medium to move towards more a respected form of entertainment, movies to be specific, but why treat games as just another storytelling medium (but with bad writers)?

I dont think developers and people who play games should be ashamed of what video games are, a fledgling medium with infinite possibilities.

I want them to release it just so I can see it tank. I bought a Wii back when it came out, and aside from around half a dozen games I've barely seen anything other than shovelware. Sure, Nintendo makes the most money, but they're not even competing in the same market as the PS3/360 anymore. I mean, FFS, even the DS has a lineup that puts the Wii catalogue to shame.

@Misanthropic Gamer

How is your comment not at half a heart already?

-1

@Co

Whoa!

You predicted that his post would get downvoted...

...only to have your own post get downvoted!

It's like an M. Night Shymalan movie!

Iwata: Vitality Sensor delayed...

Fixed.

Why bother at all? Look at the Wii new releases lined up compared to 360/ps3... its sales in the US market have bombed in the last few months, and pretty much every publication agrees with GI's news that Nintendo will be announcing their next home console at E3... I feel exactly the same as my Wii today as I did about my gamecube just before E3 2006... as sad as it is to say, its collecting dust on my shelf...

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Iwata: Vitality Sensor delayed until it works with 99% of customers

Reader Comments (60)

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:50PM Frozen Radiator said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:51PM PointlessPuppies said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:56PM romevi said

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Posted: May 3rd 2011 3:18PM eat it said

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Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:52PM eat it said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:56PM baby sea tuna said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:52PM lSpam said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 1:38PM TwEE said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 1:44PM John Z said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:55PM Hoops said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:55PM aughscreennames said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:57PM dylanspronck said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 2:13PM Morisato13 said

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Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:58PM dargondarkfire said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 12:59PM NathanDTS said

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Posted: May 3rd 2011 1:10PM babywolfman said

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Posted: May 3rd 2011 1:21PM justkiel said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 1:32PM Anticrawl said

Posted: May 3rd 2011 1:55PM justkiel said

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