Vitality Sensor Coming "not too late" in 2010

Speaking to investors recently in a Q&A, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata dropped a few details on the much groaned-about Wii Vitality Sensor.

Wii owners can expect to see the peripheral "not too late in the year next year," as Nintendo is seeming to have troubles convincing the public of the worth of the device. "It seems like the Wii Vitality Sensor is a kind of product which we are having some difficulty in addressing its product concept," Iwata blatantly mentions. "The majority of the audience at E3 responded to it like 'what in the world is Nintendo planning with a single pulse meter?'"

Is the future of gaming... finger clamps?

Of course, this response isn't surprising for Nintendo at all.  "Before Wii Fit launched, everyone doubted how well it could sell," he continues. "As for Wii Vitality Sensor, I think it will face similar doubts as to whether such a product will sell well in the video game market."

Nintendo needs to show off some games to prove the concept, of course.  Iwata indicates that their first game proposal will deal primarily with relaxation, asking, "What if you were able to visualize how to unwind and relax, or check the condition of your automatic nerve by simply inserting your finger in the device once a day?"

"Our new challenge that is different from past software development is to make a video game by using the visible activities of your automatic nerve."

Don't worry, this won't hurt... much.

This sounds like an incredible challenge, one that may have problems translating to a North American crowd.  While Nintendo is performing tests to see how their employees are reacting to the work week and impending weekend (which we can only imagine in terms of working at Nintendo of Japan), context is clearly everything.  Measuring autonomic functions like heart rate and nerve conditions and noting the patterns in your testing may deal with another bag of problems Nintendo may not be considering: cultural changes.

When Nintendo "found some patterns among our employees, like improving automatic nerve condition as the weekend nears or vice versa," one wonders what differences these test results would find in a different cultural setting, like rural America, instead of Japan.  Can Nintendo adjust in order to give everyone the right advice and guidance to relax and work with their autonomic functions?  Or will we be relying on EA to deliver the Vitality Sensor's own EA Sports Active to Nintendo's Wii Fit?

Either way, we'll be waiting for roughly a year to find out how Nintendo plans to deliver on this concept.