Does anyone have a link to this?

 It is at home, they are more likely to do something at home (if it is there) than go out and do it elsewhere, regardless of how well it works

1. Lol WoW since when was the developers purpose for something the consumers purpose.
2. you telling me that rergarless of there being a floor or a pad there that doing yoga for 2 hours a day for 7 days a week wont have an effect
3. In the more reasonable cases people who only have 15-30 minutes to play games have used Wii fit to get results.
3.5. From what I've read, they have
4. It all depends on purpose, if your trying to look like super man then probably not, unless you add weights to the work out.
5. Regardless of the application, this gets people working out, but that's not the issue here is it.

No the issue is that Wiifit is threatening *allegedlly* the fitness industry, so how does this differ from exercise products that claim to be home fittness machines? Simple it's cheaper, ok that was answered above so let's move on.

Nextly Wii fit has a person on the box doing yoga so clearly thats one of the developers intentions (or so I'm led to believe) the reality is Yoga performed properly is very very good for your body as it massages your organs.

Now before Gyms people would do what? Work right, let's look at the idea of a non-over weight person in the 1600's, they would more than likely swim, jog, fence, go to bath houses etc, etc.. All of these needless to say are phyiscal activities.

Moving your arm in Wii fit to match a yoga position will build eventual muscle, but adding weights will help with density, don't think otherwise.

The main benefit of Wii fit is it's a attempt at a fitness tool but it's a video game and not the other way around, meaning it has replay value and gives a real life achievement as well as an in-game reward to boot.

I believe I covered all bases but I'm sure you'll find something, which is good cause I like good debates that don't get insulting.

(Sorry for the late reply, just got home)

@WoW.

Nobody here is arguing that its as good as having a good gym routine but very few people actually do have a gym work out routine.
The exercises that I have so far seen in WiiFit seem to focus on balance and fairly light exercise that are hardly likely to cause any significant damage to somebody (I don't know about the yoga because I don't do yoga). I really don't see that somebody is any more likely to cripple themselves playing WiiFit than they are to cripple their hands playing Halo 3 to be honest.

They might give themselves sore legs if they don't warm up though =P

Didn't Yale prove that most people don't lose weight at a gym that at best they just maintian thier current body weight and stave off muscle deteriation because most don't go often enough to make any real progress?
Anyways excersising to me is not the most important step in getting in shape it what you eat and how much of it you eat and self discpline.

Even if these individuals that quit the fitness studio do know that the Wii Fit is inferior, I can still see why they would quit anyway. Working in the gym isn't exactly a fun thing to do after all...

I still think it's unfair to label them stupid.

Don't worry everybody, things will quickly return to normal when Fitness gym's start carrying Wiifit themselves.

Let's give people some credit. They can figure out what Wii Fit is good for, and decide if they're interested in it or not all by themselves.

If most people think Wii Fit is a silver bullet, and it isn't, then it won't have a very long shelf life. They'll be nothing but disappointed customers and bad WOM. But of course, it isn't being pitched as a silver bullet.

Wii Fit is more like the "Curves" gyms than the Hawaii Chair (Youtube it (seriously)). Like Curves, it looks to remove barriers like price, discomfort, inconvenience and lack of incentive for current non-consumers of fitness products or services. The Hawaii Chair pretends to be a silver bullet so that it can have a flash of sales before becoming a joke.

Of course it won't be "better" than a gym by traditional measures. Has no one been paying attention to Nintendo's strategy for the past 4 years? Just apply it to the fitness market instead of the gaming market. Its the same freakin' thing.

And not only will it have long term success, disproving the "stupid people" explanation, fitness software will be able to move upwards through more demanding types of fitness. Any fitness equipment could be used in cunjunction with software and motion/balance/weight sensors, and someday it probably will be. It will slowly become more sophisticated to where it can help regulate a good routine, not merely incentivize.

I'm guessing a dumbbell shell game and maybe an "open world jogger" will be some of the first third-party fitness games for Wii.