EA’s new exercise game to compete with Nintendo’s Wii Fit

Nintendo’s selection of exercise games for the Wii has gotten a little more crowded. Nipping at the heels of Deep Silver’s entry into the console exercise market, EA has just announced that it is joining the fray as well. The biggest publisher’s new exercise game? EA Sports Active.

According to Kelmens Kundratitz of Koch Media (owner of Deep Silver), their company’s exercise game would be using Wii Fit’s balance board. EA’s game, on the other hand, would instead use the Wiimote and nunchuk, and would also come with resistance bands.

EA Sports president Peter Moore told GameSpot that their game would take a different approach compared to Nintendo’s Wii Fit. Moore explains:

“It’s a completely different fitness experience,” he stated. “There’s a different philosophy between the East and West about what fitness means, and Wii Fit does very well with some of what I’ll call the Eastern philosophy of fitness, which is balance and coordination. But you’re rarely in danger of breaking a sweat and getting your heart rate up. It’s just not intended for that.

“So we immediately started building the product with a view to having a condensed time period in which you can get your heart rate up. It will measure your calories burned. It will measure time as you’re doing things.”

Moore added that EA Sports Active would be endorsed by Bob Greene, who is Oprah’s trainer. Interestingly, Jillian Michaels’ Fitness Ultimatum 2009, Deep Silver’s game, is being endorsed by celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels from the U.S. TV series The Biggest Loser. It looks like the next console fitness game would be a battle of celebrity trainers. Question is: would gameplay for both games be in tip-top shape?

I can almost see it: Bob Green on Oprah, telling people about the game he’s endorsing. Better yet—Oprah giving away EA Sports Active during the Favorite Things portion of her show. Deep Silver is on an uphill climb.

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