The rumors were true: the latest version of EA Sports Active is going to get you ready for some football! EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp for the Wii uses Active 2.0's heart rate monitor and the Wii's motion interface to lead players through "authentic NFL football drills."
Guided by a virtual coach, players will perform more than 70 drills and challenges in an effort to "improve strength, power and conditioning, as well as reaction skills, agility and first step quickness, which are key areas NFL players focus on." Players will be able to train in their favorite stadiums, alongside recreations of their favorite team.
NFL Training Camp will touch down November 16 for $100.
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Fitness games are huge. Football games are huge. Ready for it? Football fitness game. From EA, on the Wii. The name is EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp and it has already made me sweat. More »
Think the peripheral-equipped EA Sports Active provides nothing more than a wussy, girly-man workout? You might be right, but at least it's a wussy, girly-man doctor-approved workout. So says a new study conducted by a researcher from the University of Wisconsin, who found that EA's exer-game meets the requirements set up by the American College of Sports Medicine for "a healthy, active lifestyle."
The researcher had 16 different adults use the game as directed, and had them performing with a high heart rate and oxygen consumption, burning a minimum of 200 calories a session, five days a week. According to the ACSM, that's enough to "maintain proper health."
Unfortunately, the game doesn't actually stop you from playing Red Dead Redemption and connect the monitors up to you, so you'll have to do that part yourself. And while 200 calories can be significant (depending on your diet), you can burn just about that much by walking for an hour. Then again, this "walking" game doesn't have any DLC coming, does it? Take that, ambulation!
Activision has announced that DJ Hero was "the #1 new intellectual property by revenue in the U.S. and Europe for calendar 2009, according to the NPD Group." Lest you sped through that proclamation, take note of the two key words: "by revenue" -- in other words, the total amount of money spent by consumers. Considering DJ Hero debuted at $120 for the standard turntable bundle and $200 for the Renegade Edition, it's no wonder that it managed to bring in the most money (though not necessarily the most profit, and certainly not the most units sold for a new franchise).
NPD representative Anita Frazier clarified for Joystiq the performance of last year's new IPs in terms of actual unit sales. As you might have guessed, DJ Hero wasn't quite #1 in that category, but managed a respectable 789,000 units in US sales. Still, it was soundly outsold by other new IPs, including Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins, which sold 1.11 million and 1.14 million units, respectively. Besting them all, however, was EA Sports Active, which amassed 1.2 million units sold.
And get this, if we consider new IPs that launched before 2009, then Wii Play and Wii Fit were technically the best-selling new IPs in 2009.
Finally, we should point out -- as did Frazier -- that NPD data only covers the US, despite Activision's claim that the group provided European sales data regarding DJ Hero.
If you use it to play the game, it's in the game, right? While they aren't all bundled like Peter Moore suggested in 2008, EA announced that it has made agreements with three companies to produce EA Sports-branded game peripherals. While no details about the actual product lines have been announced (except that some of them will be used with EA Sports Active, which does come bundled with accessories), EA did name the three companies it's working with.
Sakar International will market EA Sports accessories for Wii and DS, as well as "a full range of EA Sports-branded multi-media and computer accessories"; Sunflex Europe will sell an unspecified line of peripherals in Europe; and, most mysteriously, A4T will produce accessories for "all platforms, including iPod," with exclusive rights in the UK and Ireland.
If you're among those who resolved both to lose weight and procrastinate more in 2010, you've got a perfectly opportunity to belatedly begin your regimen today with Amazon's Gold Box deal: EA Sports Active. The fat-fighting gamercise is available for $40 right now, $20 less than its usual price.
It's a shame to have to break one of your resolutions to keep another one, but you sadly can't procrastinate too much on this deal: It'll disappear by day's end.
EA Sports Active may be fine for the ladies, but we want to get trim with more manly pursuits, like lumbercraft and bronzemanship. According to a rumor posted by Destructoid, we may just get our wish. The site reports that, according to sources close to the project, EA Sports is creating NFL Trainer for Wii, which will help players work on their technique and get fit with a variety of football drills.
As if that weren't manly enough, there's talk of an included football peripheral to plug your Wiimote into. Can you imagine the rush of pretend-throwing the old virtual prolate spheroid down the e-gridiron? If that's not enough to put hair on your chest, we don't know what is.
A portion of a Wired review…
WIRED Works you out in less time and with more intensity than Wii Fit.
TIRED Lots of little design flaws add up to occasional frustration.
A portion of a GamePro review…
…it’s the best workout game on the market right now. If you’ve got a Wii and want to shed some weight, it’s definitely worth purchasing, And at 30 bucks cheaper than Wii Fit, the only thing that will stay fat is your wallet.
Full review here
Yes, someone else has taken the 30 day challenge that Peter Moore keeps talking about. You know, the one that Obama has yet to accept? While we all wait for the president to take up Mr. Moore’s offer, we can at least keep track of an average joe on a week-by-week basis.
Article here
