NINTENDO WANTS YOU TO RELAX

Nintendo wants you to relax, or at least that is what the name of their latest patent would indicate. Filed in Europe recently, the patent application refers to the “Wii Relax”, which seems almost certain to refer to software for the much vaunted Wii Vitality Sensor, a pulse measuring device that allegedly reads biometric data from a person’s finger, was mentioned as being in development by company president Satoru Iwata during Nintendo’s press conference at the E3 back in the summer. This isn’t the first time the name “Wii Relax” has been uttered; Italian development company Pub Company mentioned it as far back as April this year, although its web site has since disappeared and no further mentions of the name have been forthcoming. Nintendo’s American President, Reggie Fils-Aime has already said that more information on precisely what the Wii Vitality Sensor will be all about will be revealed at the E3 2010 conference.  This came from an interview that Fils-Aime gave to Kokatu back in November, where he also addressed the company’s software concerns, admitting that their policy of giving heavy marketing to games only a few weeks prior to their release has not worked too well with their less mainstream titles. “I’m not satisfied with the volumes that we do,” he admitted. “These are high quality games that I have challenged the team to think about: How do we up our marketing on these types of titles to do a more effective job?”