hello baby steps man....

I don't know how long your steps are, but I'm sure 50cm per step is a good average.

When I walk fast my steps are longer of course, but inside the house 50cm is about normal.

The point I was trying to make is that 1000 steps are a very short distance.

Any amount of "short distance" is very good that don't move around at all.

My walk to and from work is about 25-30 mins and 3000 steps.

This is what I was thinking ... There are several obvious uses for a service like this

1) Encourage people to take their system with them when they go out.

2) Work as a defence when people claim videogames make children/teens fat ... Effectively, Nintendo can claim that through these game coins Nintendo is encouraging these children/teens to be more active. On top of this, people are legitimately worried about obesity, and they might be more willing to buy a videogame system for their child which encourages some level of activity.

3) Familiarize downloadable content to 'the masses'. If you start creating services that encourage people to connect to your online store and download 'free' games, it probably will make it easier to convert these same gamers into people who connect to your online store and buy games that cost real money.

4) Test experimental game concepts "in the wild" ... If you're planning on focusing on Augmented Reality 5 years from now, you have to develop the knowledge of what works today to be successful then. Over the next 5 (or so) years, Nintendo can produce small game-play/technical demos and then see how people react to them.

and ...

5) Nintendo is looking for ways to make their products significantly different than their competition in ways other than hardware. Even if Apple/Sony thought this was a brilliant idea worth copying, it is unlikely that they would have a similar service in place for at least a year (and probably not for 2 or more years) which means that the 3DS is a little more unique in the marketplace.

You should post on craigslist and offer to walk people's 3DS for a small amount of fee :)

Somewhere in the world, a third party peripheral tat creator has £ signs flashing in his eyes...

I walk slowly

Actually, it;s more like 15 minutes, which is nothing. Why not make the divisions larger? That way you'll encourage more walking than maybe a walk round the block or something...

But they'd then have to buy another 3DS = more profit :p

....Really?