14 DAY TRIAL // A study coming from the Health Promotion Evaluation Unit at the University of Western Australia says that the benefits that the users have from Wii Fit and similar active video games are not equal to real-world exercise.
NintendoLife says that initial investigations showed that health benefits were present in a lab environment as long as gamers committed to the experience offered.
As soon as the devices were moved to gamers’ homes, their efficiency dropped because those using them were simply not interested in them in the long term.
The research also shows that the full-movement devices like the Wii Fit on the Nintendo home console and the Kinect-powered experiences for the Xbox 360 were better at getting users to exercise than those that only used the upper body.
Michael Rosenberg, the associate professor who put the study together, says that active video games do have some advantages over playing traditional titles, but they do not manage to deliver the same effects as actual exercise.