COMPUTRAINER ALTERNATIVES SOFTWARE
The product continues to this day, where it now runs using Microsoft Windows compatible software with extensive graphic and physiological capabilities.Ībout the same time as the Computrainer, Concept II introduced a computer attachment for their rowing machine. The product had a price that was far too high to be considered as an entertainment product, but was affordable by dedicated athletes. Designed as a training aid and motivational tool, the Computrainer allowed users to ride through a virtual landscape generated on an NES, while monitoring data such as power output and pedaling cadence. The first exergaming system released to the market was the 1986 Computrainer. In 1988, Nintendo acquired the North American rights to the pad, and marketed it as the Power Pad in North America. In Japan, Bandai dabbled in this space with the Family Trainer pad, released in 1986 for the Famicom (the Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System). The Joyboard for the Atari 2600 was also released in 1982, by the Amiga Corporation. The machine was nearly ready for production with several games ( Tumbleweeds and Jungle River Cruise) when Atari declared bankruptcy and the Puffer project was abandoned.
Forward speed was controlled by pedaling while steering and additional gameplay was handled by a handlebar-mounted Gamepad. This was an exercise bike that would hook up to an Atari 400/800 or 5200 system. The first true attempt at what would later be called Exertainment was the Atari Puffer project (1982). In both systems, the users could wear the VPL eyephones, an early head-mounted display (HMD), that would provide more immersion for the user. This environment was shared with another user equipped with another tracked racquet, allowing the two users to play each other over phone lines.
Virtual Racquetball tracked the position and orientation of an actual racquet that was used to hit a virtual ball in a virtual environment. If the user pedaled fast enough, the virtual bike would take off and fly over the landscape. The HighCycle was an exercise bike that a user would pedal through a virtual landscape. The pioneer in this area was Autodesk, which developed two systems, the HighCycle and Virtual Racquetball. Design considerations for exergames include the need to balance the physical effectiveness of the exercise with the attractiveness of the gameplay, with both factors needed to be adapted to the abilities of the player, referred to as 'dual flow' 1980s Įxergaming contains elements that were developed in the virtual reality community during the 1980s. Smaller trials have yielded mixed results and have shown that the respective traditional methods of exercise are superior to their video game equivalents. The genre has been promoted as a way to improve users' health through exercise, but few studies have been undertaken to measure the health benefits. The term exergaming entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2007. By June 2009, health games were generating revenues of $2 billion, largely due to Wii Fit's 18.22 million sales at the time. In the 2000s, a number of devices and games have used the exergame style to much success: the EyeToy camera has sold over ten million units, while Nintendo's Wii Fit has sold in excess of 21 million copies. Konami's Dance Dance Revolution (1998) was cited as one of the first major successes of exergaming when it was ported from the arcade to PlayStation, it sold over three million copies.
The genre's roots can be found in game peripherals released in the eighties, including the Joyboard, a Atari 2600 peripheral developed by Amiga and released in 1982, the Power Pad (or Family Trainer) a peripheral for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), originally released by Bandai in 1986, and the Foot Craz released for the Atari 2600 in 1987, although all three had limited success.
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