Wii Fit
Nintendo released a scale that played minigames, and somehow convinced the whole family to step on it every morning as entertainment. Yoga in the living room, soccer-ball heading by leaning, and a daily Body Test with opinions about your BMI — the fitness moment of 2008, long before the home-workout industrial complex.
Wii Fit launched in Japan in December 2007 and in North America in May 2008, championed by Shigeru Miyamoto — the idea grew out of his own family getting health-conscious and tracking their weight — and directed by Hiroshi Matsunaga. The hardware was the hook: the wireless Wii Balance Board read your weight and center of balance, turning yoga poses, strength training, aerobics, and balance minigames into things a console could actually judge. You headed soccer balls by leaning and steadied tilting tables with your feet, and the whole household queued up to do it.
The daily Body Test computed your BMI and delivered its verdict with a bluntness that became notorious — after the known limitations of BMI led to a young girl being labeled overweight, her parents complained and Nintendo apologized. None of it slowed the phenomenon: Wii Fit sold 22.67 million copies, among the best-selling console games in history, and Wii Fit Plus added 21.13 million more from October 2009. For a couple of years, the balance board under the TV was as standard as the coffee table it leaned against.
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