Nintendo is primarily known as a gaming company, but in the recent years the company has dabbled, or tried to dabble, in health initiatives which is part of the company’s quality of life program. For example there was the cancelled Vitality Sensor that was meant to relax players, and recently we had heard that the company was working on some kind of sleep-sensing device.
However the last time we heard about it was back in February 2015, and this has since led to analysts to speculate that maybe the program might have been abandoned or at least put on the back burner for now. According to Lewis Ward who is the research director for gaming at IDC, he speculates that the program has been put on hold.
According to Ward, “I think it’s been pushed to the back burner. It’s supposed to be released in the U.S. by the end of March [2016], but I haven’t heard anything. … [However,] I do think Nintendo has always had an interest in ‘Blue Ocean’ markets and health care and the intersection with their hardware and their software is something they’ve viewed as an opportunity.”
However some are a bit more pessimistic, like Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities who was quoted as saying, “I think it’s probably dead—just like the Wii Vitality Sensor was before and they didn’t tell anybody.” We suppose only time will tell if Nintendo still has plans for their quality of life initiative, but for now its future certainly doesn’t look so good.
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