Welcome to the Official Vitality Sensor Thread!

*What Is The Vitality Sensor?*

The Vitality Sensor is the mysterious new way that Nintendo plans to expand the gaming audience. Vitality Sensor is a pulse oximeter sensor that is supposed to "initially sense the user's pulse and a number of other signals being transmitted by their bodies, and will then provide information to the users about the body's inner world"

Many people are confused as to what the Vitality Sensor is supposed to be used for especially in video games. Nintendo of America president Reggie explains that you will get it when you see it. "So what I can tell you is this. You and I probably had a very similar conversation when we first showed the Nintendo DS: how is it going to work, why a touch screen, voice activation--I don't get it. We probably had a similar conversation about the Wii Remote: how is this going to work, how is it going to work with the games that I want to play--I don't get it. Now I'm hearing something similar for the Wii Vitality Sensor. And all I can tell you is, with the game developers that we have, we will bring forth an experience that you will say, "Wow, I get it."

Iwata had the following to say in August 2009 about the Vitality Sensor: "Wii Vitality Sensor has great potential for various applications like measuring how horrified a player is in a horror title."What we are trying to propose first is a videogame with a theme of relaxation, which is completely opposite from traditional ones, to enrich our users lives. What if you were able to visualize how to unwind and relax, or check the condition of your automatic nerve by simply inserting your finger in the device once a day?You have all had an experience where you are not in tune with how your body is doing or aware of how exhausted you body may be in a busy, strained period, but if you can visibly measure your condition every day, you can start to see how you're doing. It would be like stepping up on a scale every day and seeing the change of your weight. Our new challenge that is different from past software development is to make a videogame by using the visible activities of your automatic nerve."

*Release Date?*

Vitality Sensor was first announce on June 2nd 2009 with very limited details but was due for release sometime in 2010 with an E3 2010 announcement but that never happened. Why? According to many Nintendo employees E3 just simply wasn't the right time to show it. At E3 2010 Miyamoto had the following to say about the V.S no show: "It's actually progressing quite well. We could have shown it here at E3 if we wanted to, but the environment here isn't really suited to that game. E3 is pretty exciting, and that's a device that's all about relaxation. So it's just wasn't the best time or place to show that game. But it is ready, so we'll probably find another place that's more suitable to announce it. But I'm not directly involved in that project.

What does this all mean? Many say that the V.S was canceled or perhaps even a joke from the start but I personally believe it will be released in 2011. Vitality Sensor will be HUGE in my opinion and is very cool and interesting to say the least. V.S will be the biggest surprise hit of the Gen! 

*Patent And Potential Game*

On October 7th 2010 a Vitality Sensor patent was found by the website "Silconera". The patent revealed how the Vitality Sensor works and a potential game for the past patent revealed "Wii Relax". According to the patent and Silconera "The Vitality Sensor fires a light beam on one end and has a photo detector on the other. Hemoglobin, an oxygen transport protein found in red blood cells, absorbs some amount of infrared light since a player’s finger is in between the light source and photo detector. A person’s pulse rate goes up under stress, which increases blood flow, and the concentration of hemoglobin in a fingertip. That means more hemoglobin and less infrared absorption on the photo detector side. If you’re calm, your blood flow rate should be lower as well as the amount of hemoglobin in your finger tip, which means the photo detector will absorb more infrared light. The Vitality Sensor measures a player’s "relax fluid" this is calculated by measuring a cardiac cycle (R wave to R wave) over 100 pulses. Similar to a Brain Age, this number can be compared to the relax fluid of same aged persons."

Besides for showing how the V.S will actually work the patent(and Silconera) also described a game that is expected to use the V.S. "Its a stretch game where players tilt the remote up and down to move a character. While you’re moving flying character players have to adjust their breathing to match the ceiling’s dips and drops. The character automatically moves as the screen scrolls to the right. When you inhale you fire the smiling blob’s hat up towards the ceiling. It drops when you exhale. The game uses the Vitality Sensor to identify inhales and exhales. An increase in heart rate means a player inhaled. A decrease means an exhale. The height of the ceiling adjusts to a players breathing too, it changes to get players into a more relaxing breathing pattern. While the blob flies players need to tilt the remote to make its body dive up or down. If you touch the ceiling or floor you lose points. At the end of the stretch game, players see the amount of relax fluid they had before playing and after. Since the goal of the game is to increase the amount of relax fluid it should go up along with parasympathetic nervous system activity."

In my personal opinion this seems really interesting and would love to play it...sounds like fun to me!

V.S Pictures

E3 2009 V.S Announcement Video