With over 14 million Wii Fits sold, it's obvious the Fitness Market is ready to thrive on gaming consoles. Currently for the Wii 3 alternatives are already out (if you don't include DDR games which are great for cardio). The EA entry into the Fitness Market is coming in a few months. But will they sell? And will they work? This is meant to be not only a conversation on sales, but of third parties strategies with quality and marketing. Or I should say NON strategy. This is  huge market, look out how many people buy a Wii for (or immediately purchase) Wii Fit. And third parties are just passing on the opportunity to make a boatload of cash.  

I think the title not yet released, EA's Sports Active (coming in May 2009), will be the most successful fitness game (excluding Wii Fit) to enter the market this year. It may or may not be the best fitness product, but clearly EA understands one thing..... who they are marketing to and how. The ultimate test will be if they understand WHERE to advertise, and I hope they "get it". The trailer shows very little of the "game"/fitness program. It really doesn't need to as they have taken a smarter approach for early marketing. What the trailer does show is Oprah's fitness guru, Bob Greene talking about it in an infomercial style trailer.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76dadfKRpbs

If EA is smart, Bob will spokesperson this product upon release as well. He could showcase this on Oprah, and her other shows, Rachel Ray, etc. Oprah can give the entire audience a copy, and multi million sales will follow. Or EA could advertise it during The Biggest Loser (more on this show and missed opportunities later), Oprah, the View, Ellen, Soap Operas, etc. Now if EA does this, and exactly where EA places these and future ads will ultimately determine how well this Wii-Fit alternative does at the cash register. The 3 competing "games" are already available and are barely marketing and all are selling well. It amazes me how much the 3rd parties don't "get" that the expanded market gamer needs to be reached, and not via banner ads on game sites, and with trailers on GT.

Out now:

My Fitness Coach (Ubisoft). Came out early December 2008. Where do I even start? First, this is a fantastic fitness product. This could sell millions. It's bargain priced ($29.99 list, on sale currently through Jan 10th at Best Buy for $19.99). It is effective, and gives a much better workout than Wii Fit. It's western based, and has between 450 to 500 exercises included. It uses a virtual trainer, Maya, and is a non stop (the biggest Wii Fit problem) custom workout program. You can use any equipment you own (Swiss Ball, Hand Weights, Heart monitor, aerobic step), and Maya will incorporate those into your routine. EXCEPT, the balance board. What? Well, MFC is a cheap and dirty port. It was released in 2005 on PC (still available from Respondesign at www.getmaya.com) and on the original Xbox (Cokem International) and PS2 (Respondesign). Ubisoft signed a deal to put out Yourself Fitness 2 for Wii a while back, and a lot of  legal issues ensued. Ubi tried to kill the deal, and develop their own fitness program (God help us, probably Fitnezz Coach), and Respndesign sued them for breech of contract. So Ubi put out the three year old game, and not only did they not do anything new, but TOOK FEATURES AWAY! The original "game" had a meal planner and nutrition tips, MFC does not. YF allowed you to stop any exercise and rotate the view to look it from every angle, Ubi removed this.

Now don't get me wrong, My Fitness Coach is probably the best fitness software on the market, and the workouts blow Wii Fit away, and it's at a great price, it should sell very well, and it deserves to. Respondesign did an amazing job with this software in 2005, and it holds up extremely well today. But Ubi's lack of effort is beyond ridiculous. The Wiimote only guides you through the original menus, and with no balance board integration you have to weigh yourself outside the game. Stupid stupid stupid. And as amazing as this product is, not one ad. WTF? If you want a good workout from your console, this is must own software, but will suffer from no advertising. This could sell millions at $30. Even for a lackluster lazy port. And this port sets a totally new standard for lazy.

Which brings me to another new defining moment for lazy. Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009 (Majesco). Quality, none. Controls, poor. Balance board integration, yes. Shovelware, ooooooh YES. Of the worst kind. NOTHING works. I'm going to just leave it at that except for marketing. They signed up Jillian Michaels, the mean militant trainer from the Biggest Loser to endorse it. And it's selling because of that. Have they advertised it on the Biggest Loser? Um, no. But they paid the trainer to put her picture on the box? Yes. Majesco could do an ad run in one show and sell this piece of trash "game" to millions of unsuspecting viewers and they aren't. Lazy development + lazy marketing = the dumbest 3rd party in this article. As bad as this game is, they are just choosing not to make boatloads of money from no effort. I don't get it, if you are going to rip people off and then not get as much return as you can from it, why the hell are you even trying. Well, the game itself shows you aren't trying. They put much more effort in Cooking Mama and this would have sold much much more (and yes I know Cooking Mama is a successful series). So it's not like they didn't have the money to advertise or put out a better game. Hell they put out Psychnauts. Idiots on every level confirmed.

And finally: Active Life Outdoor Challenge (Namco). I think this is doing well, and they are advertising appropriately on kids channels. Don't know if it's good, but it has a DDR-esque pad and a bunch of kids and family games. It has easily made a profit and most reviews seem to say it is very good for the target audience, and with advertising, the target audience has gotten the message and is buying. Good job Namco for resurrecting a fun throwback to the NES days and making some money from it.  

So, overall out of three games out, only one third party "gets it". Namco deserves its sales. Majeco is selling shovelware, but could have sold a lot more be showcasing it on ONE show, the one with the games spokesperson on it. Stupidest thing I've ever seen. Ubisoft, even though they are putting out a lazy port, has the best fitness game on the market (even better than Wii Fit) and isn't investing a cent in what would give them millions in return. January would provide the highest possible sales for these games due to New Years resolutions. All 3 could be million sellers easily. The lack of ads from Ubi & Majesco is beyond unbelievable.

Wii Fit has proven fitness belongs on consoles even more than on DVD's. Konami knew it with DDR years ago. Sony knew it in 2006 with Eyetoy Kinetic & Eyetoy Groove. Yourself Fitness (now My Fitness Coach) put it all together in 2005, and Nintendo brought it to the Blue Ocean in 2008 with Wii Fit. If Ubi & Majesco were smarter, they could have (and still might) sell millions to the new gaming market.

Do you think fitness will move even more towards consoles? I hope EA has made a good program and market it well.

I think the biggest issue for third parties is the amount of marketing these games require. Wii Fit's marketing budget is soon going to eclipse $100 milion, and while Nintendo are no doubt reaping the rewards for that investment it's a big stumbling block for third parties, as they don't also benefit from advertising the Wii.

Releasing a fitness game and not marketing it isn't really an option, as everyone wants Wii Fit, and I doubt they'll buy another game for fitness unless it's rammed down their throats on TV and whatnot. Bring out a much cheaper fitness game which uses the balance board would sell enough to see profit but not the returns the big publishers expect.

It'll be interesting to see how EA's attempt at getting some of Nintendo's market goes, as the key to having a chance is spending big on marketing. I'm skeptical if EA will see a decent return ultimately though, as the amount of marketing required isn't viable when you're also competiting with Nintendo on the exact same product.

Third parties like EA have to try and get a piece of the market though - they can't ignore something like Wii Fit. It's just not an option.

While Wii Fit is legitimately huge, I think Nintendo made some mistakes which could have made it a better overal product ...

First off the Wii Fit charting and tracking should have been (somewhat) open to third party developers so people could track time spent playing DDR (for example) as cardio activity in Wii Fit. On top of this, Nintendo should have created an application for the Nintendo DS (which can sync to the Wii) where people can track their regular workouts and/or their diet on a device they can carry with them and then benefit from the coaching and charting on the Wii.

The next missed opportunity was the ability to program your workout and for Wii Fit to take you through it excercise by excercise, and to minimize the ammount of time spent in menus ... If you had the option to merge the results with the set-up of the next excercise you (possibly) get 30 Minutes of workout in 40 Minutes, which would be a huge improvement.

The last area where I think a program like Wii Fit could benefit is downloadable content ... No matter how dedicated someone is, you will eventually get bored with a workout, and with the limited number of excercises on Wii Fit this can only get worse. Even something as little as a new excercise a month could keep people interested in the game for a very long time.

One last thought ... With Wii MotionPlus on two Wiimotes, and (possibly) two ankle straps with similar technology, you should be able to come up with an aerobics like workout which gives pretty decent feedback to users which many people would probably like.

Interesting ad. Im sure EA will bother to push this as best as they can.

My Fitness Coach has almost none of the issues you mention that bog down Wii Fit, and is an amazing fitness tool. My only issue with it is that Ubi is selling a port with a few less features than the original. The features aren't the essence of the program, but were nice bells and whistles. but even with no balance board, and no new features, MFC delivers ever changing workouts and is one of the best fitness programs I've ever seen. It just could have been so so much more. It is a must buy if you want to work out with your wii though, even in a slightly watered down form it still deilvers a ***** out of ***** experience.  

You know, I think you are wrong. If you ONLY advertised on the The Biggest Loser, Oprah, the View, and Ellen you would get massive sales. If you could only do one, choose The Biggest Loser. And you could advertise in show or on commercial breaks as they do a ton of in show ads.

Yeah if Ubi even provided some displays for stores for My Fitness Coach it would boosts sales a lot. I wasn't even aware of that games existance. If it's $20 here in Canada too I'll pick it up.

EA is smart in that they are creating a western style fitness routine for a western audience and it comes with it's own accessories. Balance board supported but not needed. Therefore they can actually (try to) compete head-on with WiiFit providing a superior fitness product at lower cost. How well they market it and how it does remains to be seen.

But there's another side to this too. All those women buying Wiis and Wii Fit would probably equally like something other than fitness to do with their Wiis and so far no one is really market games aimed at them.

I know Yourself Fitness was great, but never picked it up until it was selling only used and for $$$$. I'm glad Ubi put it out as My Fitness Coach because the product delivers and then some. I've noticed used copies of YF has dropped in a bit price since MFC came out, so if the menus are important to someone they could get the PS2 version. It's great no matter which format you get though. And very western as well.

Whatever you do, stay away from the Jillain Michaels title. Complete crap. Fortunately I saw it in use before I made the mistake of purchasing it.

This kind of lazy ignorant herd mentality isn't anything new, even if it's depressing. Something hits big, and then a ton of other people try to copy it with a complete lack of understanding of why the original product was a hit in the first place. Then a bunch of look-alikes flood the market and all fail to come remotely close to the original.

It’s funny how many hints and openings Nintendo has given 3rd party developers with their own games, and how poorly they’ve done to capitalize on them. Something like Wii Play seemed to be almost a set of blueprints on how to do certain types of gameplay. Yet there’s still not definitive Pool or Fishing game on the Wii, or if there is the people who published decided to not tell anyone about it.

Surprised to hear My Fitness Coach is actually Do It Yourself Fitness repackaged with features missing. But that sort of cheap and shameful exploitation of other companies work is fairly common practice from Ubisoft.

Hard to say how EA’s game will turn out. They’ve been very hit and miss with the Wii. Reading up on EA Sports Active, it does promising. They’ll definitely market it, not sure how well though. They’re marketing for Boom Blox and Skate it was relatively poor. (But they at least paid for a lot of it.)

Ironic the best 3rd Party workout game on the Wii is a dirty port of a 3-year old piece of software that another far more devoted company slaved away on that Ubisoft didn’t bother to adopt to the Wii other then menu navigation apparently according to you.

 I honestly haven't got a clue what any of those things are, as I'm from the UK.

 But if EA are going to market this in Europe AND America on anywhere near a comparable scale to Wii Fit (As to have a chance on getting in on it's market), it's not gonna be cheap. It'd no doubt profitable if done right, but after all the marketing and market research I think you'd be looking at a risk potentially higher then a high budget HD game.