Nintendo Ring
There's another teaser video out today, including footage of the adventure game included with the Ring.It's a pilates ring, basically, and you put in the Joy-Cons into the ring and it detects your upper body movement. There's also a sensor you strap to your upper leg to track your lower body.
Both of these statements are true: this is going to fail badly, and I am going to love it.
Why is it going to fail? Because Nintendo isn't a video game company, or a fitness company. They're a toy company. They make toys that happen to be video games, Like Wii Sports. Mario games are toys. It's obvious with Labo, but it's always there beneath the surface.
This makes me deeply love Nintendo.
It alsomeans that Nintendo is deeply vulnerable when they make a product or game that isn't a toy. Wii Music? That was the WTF moment for the Wii, because Wii Music wasn't really a toy, and it bombed hard. Wii Fitness? Same thing.
Well, that train is coming down the tracks again.
Here's the new video: A closer look at the new experience for Nintendo Switch.
There was quite a bit of new information, including a decent amount of footage from the pack-in game, which is Ring Fit Adventure. It looks like it has endless runner elements with battles and stat upgrades, allegedly taking you months to complete at an hour a day. Seems reasonable, and I'm sure Nintendo will make it fun.
There's trouble ahead, though.
Here's a screenshot from the video of something that is literally never going to happen:
Look at our high-waisted champion, his furrowed brow, straining with concentration. That could happen. Those four friends watching him? Never. No one is going to sit around and watch someone working out with an adventure game.
Wii Sports had competitive games that kept score. People actually did sit around and watch each other play, because it was like watching a sport. This isn't a competitive game--it's a fitness trainer.
Also nope:
Still nope:
There is no scenario in which this actually happens.
THIS scenario, though, is 100% plausible:
That's my guy. He wants to work out, but he doesn't have time, and workouts are boring. So he works out playing a game. That's me, right there, and that's going to be 90% of the people who use this product.
Which is why it's going to fail, in a commercial sense.
However, overall failures can be joyful successes for a few, and in this case, I'm one of the few. This will be fantastic for me, particularly when polar bears are rustling against our porch screens in winter. I won't have to drive through ice and snow to get to the YMCA on low motivation days, but I can still get some kind of workout.
For me, that's great!
Dear Nintendo,
Thank you very much for making a product just for me. I hope the charge you will need to take against future earnings will not be too severe.
XOXOXO,
Bill
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