Balance board and Vitality sensor, hints of next Nintendo disruption?

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Seems someone emailed Malstrom with a similar idea to mine:

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/email-nintendo-emotion/

Email: Nintendo eMotion?

I’ve been wondering what Nintendo’s next step will be. It seems to me the Vitality Sensor offers a bigger hint than it seems, other companies are now focusing on the paradigm Nintendo created with the Wii, of motion controls.

If they can shift the paradigm once again, they can leave both Sony and Microsoft with “yesterday” proposal in motion controls. Much like they did before. With the Wii remote Nintendo changed the focus of the experience from output to input, from escapism to engagement, and so on. Sony and Microsoft seem to be adopting only a few aspects of this idea right now.

Maybe they’ll make more experiments on it, but I’m getting the sense that Nintendo is intending to shift from external interactivity to internal next. Almost a polar opposite of motion controls and another step away from the HD twins paradigm, which would be gaming from within with a healthier focus. “eMotion” controls if you will, using your inner self to control the game, and improve your life at the same time. I imagine the Vitality Sensor is only one step, maybeBrain wave recognition could play a part later. Several years ago Miyamoto hinted that they were experimenting with a brain controller internally.

I have no idea how they would make this cool, or viable enough for gaming as a whole, to properly serve as this new paradigm. But from listening to Iwata and Miyamoto it could be a logical next step if their experiments become successful. I imagine that before progressing full force into this possible paradigm they would release a game to test it like Nintendogs/Brain Age in 2005, so it’s probably still a ways away. Maybe we’ll see the Vitality Sensor game first next year, and then something more sophisticated like the Brain controller later?

I like the way you think. You are thinking with your right brain and literally ‘letting your right brain go wild’. Obviously, the Vitality Sensor shows Nintendo is researching internal stimuli as a way to manipulate games. For all we know, Vitality Sensor could be a market test for this type of gameplay.

There is a problem using internal senses to control games: it would be very difficult to market. It is easy to show a video of someone swinging the Wii-mote, but how do you advertise internal stimuli?

Anyway, I think you are on an interesting line of thought there with your email.