Digital Home Thoughts: A Wii Workout: When Videogames Hurt

"A videogame maker has finally succeeded in getting kids off the couch and moving around. But the new approach is turning out to be more exercise than some players bargained for. These surprisingly vigorous workouts are being triggered by Nintendo's new Wii videogames. The Wii game console, which went on sale last weekend, competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's new PlayStation 3. One of the Wii's distinguishing features is a motion-sensitive technology that requires players to act out their character's movements, wielding the game's controller like a sword or swinging it like a tennis racket. The new console has been wildly successful, selling out at stores and winning high marks from critics and game buffs. But as players spend more time with the Wii, some are noticing that hours waving the game's controller around can add up to fairly intense exertion -- resulting in aches and pains common in more familiar forms of exercise. They're reporting aching backs, sore shoulders -- even something some have dubbed "Wii elbow."



A wii elbow? :) Ok, when I read the headline, I thought it was going to be some sort of poignant article about how videogames spend so much time in front of videogames like World of Warcraft or some such, that their personal lives are affected. But no, this is more about how the Wii has finally convinced youngsters to get physically involved in "sports". Cool. For all you parents that read this - would you substitute this kind of physical activity for the one they would get while playing outdoors? Or is this a good enough compromise to at least avoid having them vegetate on a couch?