Nintendo’s problems with the sleep sensor project bring to mind the somewhat similar Wii Vitality Sensor, a device announced in 2009 as a way to incorporate biometric information into game design.
Advertisement
During the course of a Wednesday conference call with analysts, Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima shared some details about the company’s imminent plans to launch “Miitomo” — Nintendo’s first official social game/app for iOS and Android devices.
Kiminshima’s comments suggest Nintendo may revisit the device at some stage, but for now the focus seems to be on the forthcoming NX and the entry into mobile gaming. The company was to team-up with medical technology company ResMed to create a non-wearable, non-contact, non-operating (no human effort needed), non-waiting, non-installation effort gizmo that would watch you as you sleep and give you important feedback when you wake up.
Back in December, Kimishima reaffirmed Nintendo’s QOL initiative is “still under development”, so it’s possible we’ll still see the long-awaited health platform sometime in the future.
Did you know that Nintendo – yes, that Nintendo – was working on a new sleep-tracking device? Nintendo would then process sleep and fatigue data on its servers, and provide recommendations on how to sleep better.
The so-called “sleep-tracker” – as the tech world pegged it – was expected to hit the stores by the end of March 2016.
“In regards to the Quality of Life [device] … we do not have the conviction that the sleep-and-fatigue-themed [device] can enter the phase of actually becoming a product”, Kimishima said in remarks translated by Wired.
Advertisement
The announcement doesn’t mean that Nintendo has abandoned its Quality of Life program entirely. But Nintendo still believes there is more work to be done in the Quality of Life category.
