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VitroBahllee on 30 January 2014
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padib said:
VitroBahllee said:

I totally disagree. I think it's really naive to think that 'leapfrogging mobile and wearable technology with non-wearables' means classes and programs.

It means something device related, or claiming that 'nonwearables' "leapfrog" mobile and wearable tech is a meaningless obfuscation of his simple point.

I think they are milking the ambiguity about what all this could mean into causing buzz - people are really going to debate what they mean for a while. They've specifically said they want the meaning to remain mysterious for a while.

But no. I can see why you think so, and I'm not saying "I know I'm right about this and I know for a fact you are wrong," but I really don't believe 'leapfrogging mobile and wearable with non-wearable devices' means 'health consulting services and afterschool programs' at all.

Then what do you think it means? I understand you disagree with what I'm seeing but to disagree what do you see instead?

It was specifically stated that they will not be going into mobile and wearable techonology, and that they will employ non-wearable techonology, in parallel with their game hardware business (tangible). So I'm confident the non-wearable side is non-hardware related by virtue of the name non-wearable.

It could be services and/or products, we don't know. I offered examples of services, but it could also be a service such as a membership to a room of entertainment for health improvement, something like "Wipeout". A fitness center but built with entertainment in mind.


I don't think non-wearable means non-hardware related. That conception of 'non-wearable' could hardly be said to leapfrog mobile or wearable technology. I think it is something that at least Nintendo think is highly innovative technology. Either an expansion on sensor technology that would sit in your home, something that could monitor input that is seldom done now or in ways that are not currently done. I think they are leveraging their device knowledge for whatever it is.

Frankly, if I could imagine what they mean, I'd love to tell you because the mystery about it is killing me! I guess I just get a very different sense of what they mean: they must at least THINK they're being very clever about whatever it is to talk it up as a 'leapfrogging' of not just the current dominant technology (mobile) but the one that many industry watchers consider to be ascendant (wearable). They are trying to display ambition and that famous Nintendo 'surprise' they love so much.

So I think that it is something that at least has the potential to surprise, for sure. I'm just not sure what it could be. But 'a fitness center' you would go to doesn't seem like 'non-wearable technology.'

I mean this is imaginative and not what I think it would actually be, but ideas are:

  • a device that automatically kept track of how many calories worth of food were in your fridge/freezer and told you how many you took out and ate (fridge cam/sensor)
  • a device that picked up room oxygen/carbon dioxide levels to detect how much energy you were burning (via breath sensing)
  • a whole-house IR cam that could sense body heat and track your movements each day
  • a digital 'placemat' that suggested meals via an e-ink and sensed how much your food weighed
  • a fridge magnet that showed healthy meals and the reciepes for them

I mean I don't know that any of these are good ideas, but this is more the kind of thing I am thinking they mean, if that makes sense.

But that's just my sense of the words, VERY MUCH led by the idea of 'leapfrogging mobile and wearable.' If that's just a weird translation, or me taking the words too literally, then the whole theory I have is garbage. :)