Analyst: "Immense" Consumer Demand for Fitness Games
03/30/09
I spent last Tuesday at the GamesBeat 09 conference on the future of the video game industry. Despite Wii Fit’s complete and total dominance of the game market, very little movement seems to be going on in fitness games other than a few investments by large game companies.
I did, at least, get one analyst to (very enthusiastically!) tell the audience that fitness games is going to be a huge market.
To see the video, go to the GamesBeat Website, click on the tab labeled “Games Beat Panels 2008”, select the video titled Analyst Shootout, then forward it to about 24:30. You’ll hear Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan, answer my question about consumer demand for products at the intersection of fitness and video games.
The video is kind of slow and choppy, so here’s a transcript of his comments.
“The Wii audience is bifurcated between those who enjoy Nintendo games and fat housewives. I would say it’s about 50/50, so I think the audience (for fitness games) is immense.”
“Wii Fit keeps selling, every month. It is the #1 selling game.”
“People want to think that they’re exercising while they’re playing games. That market is immense. Jillian Michael’s Fitness Ultimatum, a piece of crap, sold 500,000 and I actually understand the number is close to a million.”