Nintendo Shelves Quality Of Life Sensor
Back when Iwata was at the helm of Nintendo he was very much into the betterment of people’s health. We saw that with the Pokémon pedometer and later with Wii Fit. He had aspirations to grow the market even more with the Vitality Sensor for the Wii and a Quality of Life initiative that was supposed to launch by March of this year.
It appears that the same roadblocks that stood in the way of releasing the Vitality Sensor have also plagued the Quality of Life sensor. In both cases it was too difficult to get them to work at an acceptable rate with all participants. If it only sometimes worked or had issues with certain body types, then it would not sell well as its accuracy would come into question.
At the recent investor briefing, Nintendo president Mr. Kimishima had this to say about the Quality of Life device:
“In regards to the Quality of Life [device], which was not mentioned in any of today’s questions, we do not have the conviction that the sleep-and-fatigue-themed [device] can enter the phase of actually becoming a product,” Kimishima said in remarks translated by WIRED. “We no longer have any plans to release it by the end of March 2016. On the other hand, we still believe there are things we can do in the general category of Quality of Life, and we will continue to study the possibility of expanding into this field.”
So, although the project hasn’t been killed off, it looks unlikely that it will be released in the near future. Oddly enough no investors had asked about the device, but Kimishima took it upon himself to offer an update on the sensor. For now, it’s going to sit next to the Vitality Sensor and Star Fox 2 as abandoned projects.
[Source: WIRED]
Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.
