Wii Fit Vs. Active Outdoor Challenge

A popular Christmas gift over the past couple of years has been the Nintendo's Wii Fit. The Wii Fit was the top video seller for 2008. During the past Christmas shopping season, the Wii Fit was in such high demand, that shelves quickly emptied within hours of re-stocking.

Many Americans are looking to loose weight, and the with New Year's resolutions being decided on just after Christmas, it is only natural that a product like the Wii Fit was so popular. Overweight consumers are looking for fun an innovative ways to loose the extra pounds, and the Wii Fit marries the idea that you can excesses while still playing a computer game.

But the Wii Fit is not the only video game offered for the Nintendo that entices participant to exercise. Another game to try is the Wii's Active Life Outdoor Challenge from Namco Bandai Corp.

The Wii Active Life Outdoor Challenge uses the same principles as Wii Fit to get you off of the couch and moving your arms and feet. The controller for Active Life Outdoor Challenge is a soft mat that you use to move your Mii character through various phases of game play. Most of the movement in Active Outdoor Challenge is accomplished using your feet. Hhowever, there are a couple of games that have you swing your arm, or use your hands to hit the mat.

Active Life Outdoor Challenge contains over a dozen different games in single play, free play, or multi player mode. In multi-player mode both participants stand on the mat side-by-side and can either compete against each other, or play cooperatively.

The mat provided by Active Life Outdoor Adventure is made of soft material with sensors inside that detect pressure and movement of your feet. It does not require any batteries, and simply plugs into your Wii console. During some of the more active games, the mat does have a tendency to slide. In addition, you should not wear your shoes while on the mat, as they could damage the built-in sensors.

When you are playing in multi-player mode on Wii Active Outdoor Challenge, you stand pretty close together. If you have two different size players, the smaller one could get bumped off of the mat, since you stand elbow to elbow.

The Wii balance board is made mostly of plastic. It is heavier and has feet that will extend into a carpet to keep it from slipping.

The Wii Fit offers a more structured and fitness program than Active Outdoor Challenge. The Wii Fit concentrates on different fitness areas, such as aerobics, stretching, and strength. In addition, the Wii Fit has tracking capability. It uses some personal data, like your sex, age, height, and weight to keep track of your Body Mass Index over time. The Wii Fit balance board has a built in scale so that you can occasionally measure your weight.

A criticism if the Wii Fit has been the inability to create personalized fitness programs. There is some tracking of your weight, but there is now way to create and save exercises routines.

In Active Outdoor Adventure, there is no tracking of your statistics, other than high scores and a points system showing how many games you have played. But remember, Outdoor Challenge was not really designed to get you to lose weight, so the fact that there is no tracking built in should not be a drawback.

Wii's Active Outdoor Challenge can easily be used for a fitness program that concentrates solely on aerobics. The games in Active Outdoor Challenge can be quite intense, especially the ones that involve sprinting. Thus, if you are out of shape, then you may want to be sure to start slowly and ease into your exercise program over a couple of weeks.

Both the Wii Fit, and Wii Active Outdoor challenge can be used to get yourself into shape. The Wii Fit offers a slightly more structured approach with stretching and strength training emphasized, while Active Outdoor Challenge concentrates mainly on an aerobic workout. If you tired of using the Wii Fit, you can supplement your workouts with the Active Outdoor Challenge, to integrate more aerobic excercise into your fitness program