Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

wii fat

CNet’s Nate Lanxon has a helpful video about how to game the system (though he concludes at the end — and I agree — that it’s rather pointless to cheat at Wii Fit, given that the whole idea is to help you improve your fitness level, not “win” the various games):

But some people just want to play cool games and not lose any weight. Here are four ways to abuse the fundamental principles of Wii Fit, without losing out on any of the balance board-fuelled fun. Go nuts (on nuts), podgesters!

Also interested are the slight differences between Lanxon’s British version of the Wii and the one sold in the U.S. The quality of the audio recording may be a factor, but the high-pitched voice of the anthropomorphic balance board seems a bit sharper in the British version, more clipped than soothing. And I need to double-check, but I think the language in the weigh-in screen may be just slightly different. That said, one imagines that the long-term success the Wii Fit depends on fostering a sense of attachment between the user and the game / board, in which case those those little, localizing details matter quite a bit.

(Thanks to Shawn for the link.)

Updated July 6 at 10:56 p.m.: Looks like the key difference between the British and U.S. versions of Wii Fit on the weigh-in screen is that what’s called “Normal” on the U.S. version is called “Ideal” on the British version.