Microsoft Announces Xbox Fitness

Microsoft’s Major Nelson has confirmed a new first party exergaming title, Xbox Fitness, coming to the Xbox One. The game will be available on November 22 through December of next year for all Xbox Live Gold subscriptions with no extra charge.

Microsoft signed up some of the more notable celebrity fitness trainers for the game, including Tracy Anderson of the Tracy Anderson Method, Tony Horton of P90X, Shaun T. of INSANITY, and Jillian Michaels.

Subsequently, they tout better use of the revamped Kinect to make Xbox Fitness the superior exercising game. It will be able to map your muscles out, figure out which muscles are worked out more, as well as your exertion. As we already know, Kinect can also sense your heart rate based on the microfluctuations in your skin. Finally, Xbox Fitness will use an energy meter visualization, to help encourage you to keep pushing yourself to work harder.

Now this is a genuinely interesting use of Kinect and sounds like a killer application for the Xbox One. However, I am not necessarily convinced signing up so many celebrity trainers gives it that much more legitimacy; after all, Jillian Michaels already has her own game franchise, and it’s not particularly known for being popular or selling well.

I also have reservations with how Xbox Fitness seems to make a claim as a legitimate exercising tool. Either it is not as good as it looks on the surface, or it is effective – and unfortunately, that means it is potentially dangerous. Of course, for now we should reserve judgment on this until consumers get to try them out for themselves, and hopefully, academic studies are made to assess its efficacy. If you have a legitimate interest in this game, you will want to pay attention to the fine print before getting it. For now, check out the trailer below.

Source: Major Nelson