WII or Kinect or Playstation Move or None of the Above?

November 10, 2010 1:43 PM

I'm lucky enough to have a workout area in our house. Have an old TV and DVD player and a good collection of workouts, free weights, and other fitness stuff, but I'm starting to think about adding a Playstation Move or Xbox Kinect or WII. My interest is in workouts, not other games. Has anyone tried any or all? Which, if any, would you recommend? Or should I just stick with current setup?

Don't get me wrong, I love video gaming, and do it when I can, but we have an absence of room to move around a lot in any other potential installation area.

posted by bearwife to health & fitness (5 answers total)

Wiifit is like yoga, and kinda frustrating because it doesn't let you string exercises together for a routine. Wiifit plus is better, but I would recommend EA Sportsactive over either - it will get you a better workout.

Note: I don't exercise with this stuff, but my girlfriend did for a while so I'm familiar with them. Personally, I dunno if I would blow three hundred bucks for what is essentially glorified aerobics videos unless I *really* loved tracking my metrics.
posted by smoke at 2:00 PM on November 10, 2010

Kinect hands-down if only because of its actual ability to make sure your posture is correct. No game on the Wii or Move can do this. EA Sports Active 2.0 is coming out for the Kinect on the 16th (17th?) of this month, and it'll probably be great, if the first EA Sports Active is any indication. Also, Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved is pretty good and it's available now.
posted by InsanePenguin at 2:30 PM on November 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've never played the Wii or PS Move, but we just got the Kinect and the gaming part alone is great exercise. After 40 minutes of pure fun my leg, arm, and back muscles are completely worn out. You wouldn't even need the exercise game with this thing!
posted by Sufi at 2:33 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'd recommend watching the reviews come in for the Kinect for the XBox 360.
Pretty much all of the titles available right now are fitness or virtual-sports based.

For those not in the know, the Kinect is a fancy camera that hooks up to an XBox 360; it watches you moving around in front of the TV and uses that as the controller. So there's a dance game where a dancer does things onscreen and you try to copy the moves in real life, and score more the closer you get. There are several fitness titles where a human is shown on screen doing yoga/exercises/whatnot and you play the same monkey-see-monkey-do game; the game will track what you're doing and tell you to move your leg back, jump higher, etc.

If the goal is fitness, that seems like more activity and variety than just waving a Wii wand around. But only if it works. It just came out, so watch the reviews roll in and see if it's worth it.

Also, by itself, the XBox 360 is not necessarily the best in all areas, but it's arguably the most versatile of the three consoles. So if you want to do other stuff with it later, you're covered.
posted by bartleby at 2:38 PM on November 10, 2010

Oh, I meant to add: I have the Kinect and if nothing else, the tech works and works well. But only if you have enough space. You really, really need 8-10 feet of space in front of the TV. Especially for fitness games where you'll be stretching and moving.

But that aside, yes, the technology is very robust. It has an IR camera so it can track you even in complete darkness (if not recognize your face like it can in a well-lit room.) and the voice-recognition software is the best I have ever had the pleasure of using, no joke. Microsoft put some serious cash into this thing and it shows.
posted by InsanePenguin at 3:23 PM on November 10, 2010