The American Council on Exercise (ACE) has released the results of a study into the effectiveness of Nintendo’s Wii Fit.
According to the ACE, a leading authority on exercise and training, Wii Fit produced “underwhelming” results in terms of exercise intensity.
The study, conducted in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, tested six owii fitf the most aerobically intensive minigames in Wii Fit: Free Run, Island Run, Free Step, Advanced Step, Super Hula Hoop and Rhythm Boxing.
Free Run and Island Run came out top with users burning an average of 165 calories after 30 minutes of play, while Rhythm Boxing and Super Hula Hoop coming in second and third at 114 and 111 calories burned respectively.
However, the bad news is that the researchers also found that performing the actual exercise that Wii Fit replicates burns a "significantly higher" amount of calories. For example, Rhythm Boxing burns only around a third of the calories per minute as traditional boxing.
"While we found that playing the Wii Fit burns twice as many calories as a sedentary video game," the ACE's chief science officer Cedric X. Bryant told GamaSutra, “the outcome of the study suggests that Wii Sports, the Wii's suite of exergames that includes tennis, boxing, golf and bowling, is a better option and more capable of helping consumers meet minimum intensity guidelines for exercise."
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