Firstly, thank you very much for coming all the way to Kyoto today.

It’s my pleasure.

I should explain that Dr Miyachi of the National Institute of Health and Nutrition¹ was kind enough to act as an adviser for Wii Fit Plus.

1

The National Institute of Health and Nutrition was established by Japan’s Ministry of Home Affairs in 1920. It is an official body charged with improving standards of public health by conducting research and carrying out surveys concerning the health of the Japanese population, their diet and general levels of nutrition.

I was involved in the latter half of the software's development, and we actually used Wii Fit Plus in order to measure the exercise intensity² of each training so that the users would know how many calories they’ve burned off, and we also gave a number of advices on how to combine the different trainings.

2	This refers to the ratio of heart rate calculated either during or immediately after training exercises to maximum heart rate. It is expressed as a numerical value that people can use as a way to measure their physical capabilities.

I would like to ask you to talk in detail about that a little later in the interview, if I may. To start with, can I ask you what kind of research you have carried out up to now and how you ended up doing your current research?

Okay. Well, I graduated from the National Institute of Fitness and Sport in Kanoya³, the only national university specialising in physical education. When I was a high school student, I had wanted to be a P.E. teacher and applied for that university, which had just been founded that very year.

3	The National Institute of Fitness and Sport in Kanoya City, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, is a national university specialising in physical education founded in 1981.

So you were in the very first year of students.

Right, which is why the teachers were incredibly passionate and went above and beyond the call of duty in the superb level of education they gave us.

I’d say that while that level of passion in the education you were given meant you were incredibly lucky on the one hand, it probably also served to pull you in a different direction from your original dream to be a P.E. teacher! (laughs)

Yes, exactly! (laughs) I ended up having little choice but to devote myself to study. I was originally a rugby player and when I came to combine my research with rugby, I realised how interesting it was to do research into physical exercise.

Out of interest, when you were playing rugby, to what degree was your training - and the world of sports in general - scientific in nature and how much was psychologically-based training?

By which you mean...? (laughs)

Well, when I was a high school student, there was a period when I was actually a committed member of the volleyball team. School sports clubs at that time were basically focussed on showing grit and determination.

So you wouldn’t be allowed to drink water while you were training, for instance?

Right, that’s exactly what it was like! (laughs)

Yes, that's how things used to be. But then so-called sports science became an essential part of sports clubs from the 1980s, right around the time that we were starting university.

I see.

I think that was probably a positive thing for me. After entering university, I had opportunities to experience training based on scientific research, so I was able to see how the exercise I was doing was scientific and theoretically-grounded. Then while I was gaining more experiences of this nature, I went on to do a Master’s Degree and began to study what kind of changes people’s bodies went through during physical training. When I finished the Master’s Degree, I went to Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare⁴ in Okayama Prefecture. It was originally the Kawasaki Medical University and focussed on medicine, but a Health and Physical Education Department had just been set up and again I found myself among the first year of students there…

4	Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare is a private health and welfare university which has its main facility in Kurashiki City in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. It was established in 1991.

You seem to have a knack for that! (laughs)

Yes, I do! (laughs) But by this point I had also started to lecture...

And how many years did you spend at that university?

I was there for fourteen years. During that time, I worked to gain a post as a lecturer while also carrying out my own research. Then six years ago, I began working for the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Tokyo.

Could you explain briefly what kind of organisation the National Institute of Health and Nutrition is?

It’s a research facility under the auspices of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. It does research in order to improve the general health of the nation by determining what sort of diet and exercise regime the population should be following.

And what is your particular goal in the work you do?

My role at the Institute of Health and Nutrition is to work as the project leader for the team working on devising exercise guidelines. So my goal is "to construct the guidelines for physical exercise needed to improve the health of the nation". But I’m not permitted simply to go off and do my own independent research in order to work towards that goal. I collate research from around the world and analyse it, putting it in a form that will be useful to everyone...

So your goal is to gather reports and research from around the world, while at the same time doing your own research, and then to come up with guidelines for physical exercise which can be recommended for use by anyone in Japan.

That’s right. However, as these guidelines are what you’d call a highest common denominator, it will never be something that we can recommend to absolutely everyone.

But by coming up with the guidelines, you are certainly contributing something positive to the general level of health of the nation.

Yes, that’s right.

But having said that, while every adult in Japan knows that they should be exercising, there are times when they just can’t quite manage it! (laughs)

Right, there are times when they can’t quite seem to manage it! (laughs)

Out of interest, what percentage of the Japanese population exercises on a regular basis?

Well, it’s difficult to define precisely what constitutes regular exercise, but one definition is that it should be one hour of exercise per week: in other words, approximately two half-hour exercise sessions per week. So people who work up a light sweat by exercising this much can be defined as doing regular exercise.

In which case, I qualify! That’s a relief! (laughs)

(laughs) That means that about 35-40% of the population exercise regularly. Or to put it the other way, between 60-70% of the Japanese population do not exercise on a regular basis.

I see.

There is also another way of measuring exercise that takes as its criterion the number of steps taken each day. To put it simply, it is defined by whether or not you walk 10,000 steps or more each day.

You often hear about “10,000 steps a day.”

That’s right. Anyone who walks 10,000 steps every day can be defined as being an active person. But there may not even be 20% of the population who qualify.

Anyone whose job entails walking around will be able to reach 10,000 steps a day fairly easily, but I’d say that for anyone who commutes to work and then does a desk-based job, it would be absolutely impossible to walk that much without making a deliberate effort.

You’re correct. We have actually researched the average number of steps that Japanese people are currently walking each day. It turns out that men are averaging just over 7000 steps a day, while women are averaging a little over 6000. It’s not even coming close to 10,000 steps a day. That means that Japanese people are increasingly leading sedentary lifestyles.

Would you say that, as a whole, society is moving in that direction because, while people were more active in the past, life has in a sense now become too convenient?

Yes, and I think that we saw a turning point a decade ago. At that time, men averaged 8000 steps a day, while women averaged about 7000, which means that it was a whole 1000 steps a day more than it is now.

Really?

That figure began to fall steeply ten years ago and the average number of steps taken has fallen year on year ever since. At the same time however, the number of people who are spending their free time playing tennis, going to gyms or taking regular exercise - and this includes using Wii Fit – has actually slowly increased. But the amount of exercise taken by walking around in the course of everyday life has been steadily decreasing.

Would you say that this is due to everyday life becoming more convenient and also to changes in people’s lifestyles?

One reason is the continued development we see in Information Technology.

You’re talking about people who are staring at a computer screen all day long…

You’re now able to do the shopping over the Internet without even going out to the shops. A lot of unprofitable bus routes and train lines have also been discontinued so that as you get further into the countryside, the rate of automobile ownership increases and the American-style motorisation of society becomes more pronounced. But the biggest single factor is that the number of people no longer working on Saturdays has greatly increased.

The single biggest reason is that there are fewer people working on Saturdays? That’s surprising to hear.

While it’s a good thing from the point of view of the workers, when we were younger we used to always work until 1pm on a Saturday. We’d call it a half-holiday. That’s now a thing of the past.

Saturday is generally a day off in schools now too.

That’s right. So a combination of the three factors I’ve mentioned has had an increasingly pronounced effect over the last decade and has led to the current situation.

I see. If this state of affairs is allowed to continue, there will be an increased risk of various lifestyle-related diseases...

Obesity, in particular.

So you would say that you have the sense that there is a crisis in the state of the nation’s health?

I have an extremely keen sense that we are in the midst of a crisis. That’s why my goal is not simply to put together guidelines for exercises, but to strive until the end of my life to get the Japanese people to take more exercise.

So that’s your life’s work.

Yes, it is. At the very least, that’s the major goal I’m pursuing until I reach retirement age.

Could you tell me about the nature of your research between starting work at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition and becoming involved with Wii Fit?

I did research into the effects that exercise and physical activity had on the various risk factors for cardiological illnesses, in particular heart disease and strokes.

I see.

I focussed especially on the hardening of arteries, doing research to determine whether or not exercise and physical activity had a beneficial effect on this.

What sort of results did that research yield?

The generally-held belief is that exercise serves to prevent illnesses such as heart disease and that, at the same time, it makes arteries less hard. But unfortunately, what I discovered while doing a whole range of research was that it’s not the case to simply say that any type of exercise is beneficial.

So it depends on the type of exercise?

That’s right. So for instance, American Football players use training machines to build up their upper body strength. When they do that sort of training, they focus all their strength …

They hold their breath, which means that they aren’t using oxygen.

They aren't using oxygen. If you really devote yourself to that kind of anaerobic muscle training, your arteries will actually harden.

So it will actually serve to harden the arteries?

Right.

So in order to boost health, muscle training is not necessarily…

Well, not all of its effects are beneficial. Of course, it's not true to say that it’s all harmful - there are plenty of benefits to be gained by doing it.

You often hear that if you don’t have a lot of muscle, basal metabolism drops which can make weight gain more likely. That means that while muscle training may be important, just doing exercises where you hold your breath is not a good idea.

Right. You shouldn’t just do those types of exercise. Lots of people have been kind enough to show interest in my research into this matter and when putting together guidelines for training exercises, they have to some extent abandoned the misconception that all exercise is necessarily good for you. I think that the importance of gathering objective evidence to determine which types of exercise are good and which are bad has begun to gradually sink into the general consciousness…

You’ve just casually used the word “evidence”. (laughs)

(laughs)

We do not hear that term in our daily lives very often. In the medical world, I understand that evidence refers to doing practical tests and gathering statistics on the physical causes and effects which result in order to provide proof to back up your conclusions.

That’s right.

Is my understanding correct?

You’ve got it in one!

There is also the term EBM, standing for “evidence-based medicine”.

Right. It refers to medicine based on evidence gleaned from academic research. So there is that manner of thinking. However, academics have a tendency to look at what they’ve researched and state: "This is the correct answer!" However, I have a duty to check my own research with a sceptical eye: “Is what Miyachi claims actually the case?” This means that I have to be aware of what every other researcher is doing and what kind of data they are producing. By gathering all of this, I can begin to see what the correct way to proceed is.

I see. Now, to change the subject somewhat, I’d say that there are many people who, while they played sports at one time, once they are adults they become busy and simply haven't got time to do exercise. But once they get a chance to exercise again, they reacquaint themselves with how good it feels to work up a sweat.

Yes, I think that’s right.

With that in mind, it would seem to me that somehow providing the motivation to get people to exercise even once could prove to be really significant. From the perspective of your research, what would you say about this?

From the point of view of those of us doing research in the field, this is actually the most difficult area to understand.

Is that right?

We can’t fathom the reason why some people take that first step and begin exercising, or put the other way round, why some people just don’t want to do exercise. That’s why we end up offering guidance only to those people who want to exercise, for instance...

And that just means that people who were already healthy become even healthier…

And people who aren't like that remain unhealthy.

It’s very difficult to create those opportunities…

Moreover, we don’t really understand the physical mechanism that determines why people who may have done a lot of exercise in their youth just don’t want to exercise once they reach adulthood.

That would entail looking at people’s emotional make-up and the strength of their willpower which are relatively...

…it may well entail elements that are tied in with study of the brain and psychology. However, for instance, substances such as nicotine in cigarettes trigger the desire to smoke. But we really don’t have any idea what factors influence the desire to do physical exercise. So in spite of not knowing what this mechanism is, we are still trying to come up with ways to get more people doing exercise.

It’s something that I’ve always found very mysterious. If you find yourself unable to exercise for a while and then do a little, you’ll remember that it feels incredibly good and, more often than not, you'll decide that you want to do it again.

Perhaps at times like that, there is some kind of substance inside you…

I wonder just what it is! (laughs)

There may be some kind of substance being produced or your brain may be recalling that feeling of pleasure making you realise that continuing to do this would be enjoyable. But I do think that there is probably some sort of substance at work in all of this.

It does seem a little strange to me that you’d want to work up a sweat and tire yourself out deliberately in the first place.

There is something strange about it. I don’t think you’d be able to do something like that unless there was something acting on your body. I don't know what that might be, but I've given it my own name: "rakutin".

“Rakutin”? From the word “rakuchin” (a term that means “pleasurable” or “taking it easy" in Japanese)? (laughs)

That’s right! (laughs) With appetite, research has confirmed that, to put it simply, after a good meal when you feel full, a hormone called leptin is released. The part of the brain known as the satiety centre controlling the stomach is stimulated so that people don’t feel they need to eat any more. So that’s where I got the term “rakutin”. When people want to take it easy, a certain substance may be released and people no longer want to do exercise. So if we could somehow inhibit the working of this “rakutin”, people would feel a strong desire to exercise!

(laughs)

So just what is this “rakutin”…? It may actually be conversely a molecule which makes you want to do exercise, or it could be a type of molecule that makes you not want to do exercise. I’m not sure what it is, but I think it’s vital that we researchers find out. I think that the work I’ve been doing is actually a chance to further pursue this.

By which you mean?

Software like Wii Fit has a great potential to motivate people to become physically active. By investigating just what changes their brains and bodies are going through, we may be able to uncover just such a molecule as “rakutin”. In other words, by looking at it from the viewpoint of humans altering their behaviour, Wii Fit as well as the Wii console itself holds interest for researchers like myself.

When did you first become aware of Wii Fit?

If I’m being honest, my awareness at first didn't go beyond the level of thinking: "Oh, so they’ve brought out something like that now."

It first went on sale in December 2007.

So that’s about two years ago. When I first became strongly aware of Wii Fit, it was around October or November of 2008. At that time, the Nikkei newspaper wanted to do some research on the theme of weight gain over the New Year holiday, and that was the first time I came into contact with Wii Fit.

So that was less than one year ago.

It’s only about 10 months since I decided to do my own research on Wii Fit, but from the first time I tried it out, I feel I became very closely involved in it right away.

What was your impression when you first actually used the software?

I thought that it was really well put together.

What particular elements did you feel that about?

I wasn’t simply doing research, but I was also working with people who were actually at high risk of a variety of lifestyle diseases including obese people, so I had a lot of opportunities to tell them what kind of exercises would be beneficial for them. It was then that I realised just how many people there were who, as you mentioned a little earlier, were aware that they should be doing exercise, but just couldn’t seem to bring themselves to do it. So I was constantly facing these people, asking myself what exactly I should be saying, and in what way I should be expressing myself, so that my words would resonate with these people.

I see.

Then when I turned the power on to start Wii Fit, Wiibo⁵ says a lot of things like "Oh, hello there. It's been a while!" or “You’re really giving it your all!” or “You’re starting at this time?”

5	Wiibo is a character who appeared in Wii Fit and was an anthropomorphic Wii Balance Board. Wiibo was very flexible in his movements and offered a range of advice to the user.

Yes, and things like: "You should really weigh yourself at the same time every day, you know!"

Well, he said lots of things like that and what Wiibo was saying really wasn't all that different from the kind of things I'd been saying. (laughs)

(laughs)

I thought: “This has really been put together well!" (laughs) But I guess that because Wiibo knows exactly when you've used the Wii Balance Board, how frequently and for how long, he can say the appropriate thing at the right time.

Right.

We basically share the same golden rule when it comes to instructing people. It’s vital to assess each person individually, gauge their strength, take account of what kind of activity they've been doing and what their situation is and then give that person a particular type of advice. In other words, the assessment and the advice should come together as a kind of set.

So you give guidance appropriate to that particular person.

With Wii Fit, you could weigh yourself daily, measure your physical strength and have your physical age calculated, while it also recorded the amount of time you’ve spent on the Wii Balance Board. Based on the results of that assessment, Wiibo would then speak to the user and give them feedback. For these reasons, my first impression of Wii Fit was that it was a tool that gauged the most up-to-date personal details as well as giving encouragement aimed specifically at the user.

I see.

When I saw that you could do those kinds of things without requiring the involvement of actual people, it came as quite a shock to me. I thought: "Maybe I'm just not needed anymore!" (laughs)

I hardly think it will come to that… (laughs)

The impact it had on me was so strong that I really did think: “Maybe there won’t be any more need for instructors like me..."

Of course there will still be a need for instructors, but at the same time, when you have Wii Fit in your home, it’s ready for you to use at any time. This is something which I believe is of very great importance.

Yes, it is.

So there may be more specialised facilities available if you go to a gym, and if you spend the same amount of time as you spend on Wii Fit, it may well prove to be more effective training. But having said that, by actually travelling to the gym, getting changed, exercising, taking a shower, getting changed again and going home, you really need a lot of time once everything is factored in compared to the amount of time you actually spend training.

Even getting to the gym can be a real pain.

That’s why there are those people who continue going to the gym and others who give up. But even with those people who give up going to the gym, with a Wii Balance Board set up in their living room where all they have to do is get on it for a little while each day, I think they're likely to be able to keep it up. From that point of view, I think Wii Fit occupies a really interesting position.

I think that’s exactly right. For instance, imagine a father whose belly is protruding a bit and who isn't looking as good in his jersey as he used to. As you can imagine, he may feel a certain reluctance towards going to the gym and doing aerobics or yoga in front of everyone. But with Wii Fit, on the other hand, all he has to do is do a bit of hula hoop in his pyjamas after getting out of the bath. Who could really object to doing that?

Right! (laughs)

And what’s more, you can do this at whatever time suits you. The fact that you can do it in the evening, or on your day off… Well, in my field, we refer to the barriers that people feel towards doing exercise…

So Wii Fit actually…

It really lowers those barriers significantly.

Up to now, before doing exercise, you always needed to work up the energy to get over those barriers: “Right! Let’s do it!” But what you’re saying is that with Wii Fit, those barriers have already been lowered.

In my field, we refer to this as a “small step”. Particularly with those people who feel a reluctance about exercising, even if we say: “According to our research, you need to be doing this much exercise!” they will be sure to reply: “I just can’t do it!” That’s why it’s really important to get them to make that first step, no matter how basic the exercise is. In that sense, Wii Fit amply fulfils the role of providing that “small step”.

I see.

Now, there’s a fact that struck me as really interesting. When I researched the number of people in Japan who belong to gyms, the total is 2.8 million. If we add the 800,000 people who belong to sports clubs such as tennis or swimming clubs, we get a total of about 3.5 million. I think that once you hear that figure, Iwata-san, you'll understand what I'm getting at. (laughs)

Yes indeed! (laughs)

3.5 million is more or less the same figure as the number of copies of Wii Fit that have been sold in Japan. The fact that the number of people paying to use the facilities at the gym basically matches the number of people who own Wii Fit is a statistic that I found hugely interesting as it shows what an enormous impact the software has had and how it has resonated so profoundly with people...

With Wii Fit, there are also households where more than one person is using it.

So there are more people using Wii Fit than going to gyms and sports clubs. I think that it is precisely because the barrier is so low that it has been embraced so widely.

Dr Miyachi, you were kind enough to act as adviser for Wii Fit Plus. Can I ask you to tell me about what specifically you did in this role?

I was involved with a number of aspects of the software, but one thing I did was supervise the suggested combination of exercises tailored for people with particular requirements, for instance, people who are trying to lose weight or who want to sleep better at night.

You’re referring to the Wii Fit Plus Routines that are tailored to the individual needs of people suffering from ailments such as stiff shoulders or backache.

That’s right. It provides the same kind of service which you would get when an instructor gives you guidance in the gym. But in the case of Wii Fit Plus, you can get this kind of advice in your own home, which is something that I think has real value.

Right.

And there's more. What I believe to be the most valuable aspect of the software is the fact that when you get on the Wii Balance Board and work out, it will calculate the number of calories you have burned off. What’s more, this is displayed daily on a graph so that the data is compiled.

The human body is incredibly honest – that is to say, if you burn extra calories, that amount of fat will be burned and your weight will be certain to go down. To give a concrete example, there is a clear reaction meaning that if you burn off 7000 calories, you will lose approximately one kilo.

So this is a principle that is always obeyed.

It’s a principle that’s always obeyed. It’s a principle that however much you struggle, you just can't resist.

People who are prone to weight gain often say things like: “Even if I drink water, I put on weight!" (laughs) But there’s absolutely no truth in that, is there?

There's absolutely no truth in it.

If you are taking in excess calories and you’re not burning them off…

You will put on weight.

Put the other way, in order to lose weight, there is no alternative to reducing the amount of calories you are taking in and/or increasing the amount you are burning off.

That’s right. This is why I think that having a graph that plots how you are losing weight at the same time as displaying the number of calories you are burning is something that will give real encouragement to the user. So basically the fact that the user can see the reason that they’ve put on weight while also being given encouragement is a real novel approach.

In order to allow us to accurately calculate the amount of calories burned off by doing the various training exercises, you were kind enough to carry out the exercise strength measurements.

Right. At the National Institute of Health and Nutrition there is a special room known as the metabolic chamber⁶ where you can measure exercise intensity. We used it to measure each training exercise.

6	Resembling an airtight hotel room, a metabolic chamber is a ground-breaking piece of apparatus which allows long-term measurements to be taken of the amount of energy used by people in an environment close to everyday life. It is also known as a Human Calorie Meter.

I've seen video footage many times of the way they used to measure exercise intensity in the past. You'd have someone on a treadmill, and they’d have to wear a mask like the ones worn by pilots of fighter jets while they ran along panting and looking extremely uncomfortable.

The reason why those people would wear masks like fighter pilots was because their exhaled breath was being stored directly in a large bag so that it could be analysed. The principle was that by measuring the amount of oxygen in the bag, they could tell how much fat and sugar had been used and therefore how many kilocalories had been burned off.

They were measuring the amount of oxygen inhaled and utilised by the body, weren’t they?

That's right. But with the mask on, you could only measure very basic activities such as walking, running and cycling.

Right.

For instance, if you’d tried to get people to lie down on their stomachs and hold the same position or stand in yoga poses…

The mask would have got in the way.

That's right. What’s more, you couldn’t do the exercises in a natural, enjoyable way in the way you can with Wii Fit. But as the metabolic chamber at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition measures about 9 metres by 6 metres, we can take measurements with people using it as if they’re playing in their own front room.

So in other words, you can obtain more realistic data.

That’s right.

Could you tell me more about the set-up in that room?

New air is constantly being circulated in the room at a rate of about 60 litres a minute. Once you enter the room, the air you breathe out is also constantly absorbed at a regular rate. So if you exercise as hard as you can, the amount of oxygen will decrease...

The concentration of oxygen will decrease while the concentration of carbon dioxide increases.

Right. So the consumption of energy is measured by means of that change.

So that's how you collated the data for all the training exercises on Wii Fit Plus.

It wasn’t only Wii Fit Plus. We spent two months collating data from all of the activities on the original Wii Fit as well as Wii Sports.

So it took two months to measure all of the activities. What did you discover by doing that?

There are actually two or three reports that have been published in Britain and America where the amount of energy used playing Wii Sports was measured. But the methods they used to take the measurements were different from how we did our research and the estimates for the concentration of oxygen were low. They were perhaps 20-30% lower than the measurements we took. The reason for that is because movements during the exercises were restricted…

So movements were restricted which meant that the amount of exercise done was reduced as well.

Yes, it was reduced.

But if you play in a more natural and dynamic way…

By using the metabolic chamber, you can play in a more natural and dynamic way that reveals that even in Wii Fit and Wii Sports, there are a significant number of activities with values of 3 METs or over.

METs is a term that people will most likely not have heard before. Would you be kind enough to explain what this term refers to?

Certainly. METs is a unit used to measure the intensity when one exercises or moves around. If you don't move, this is measured as 1 MET, and if you ride an exercise bike, for instance, you'll use three times that amount of energy, so it will be 3 METs. Both the American Heart Association and my own exercise guidelines recommend that you do exercises measuring 3 METs or over.

So you’re saying that after measuring the training exercises on Wii Fit, you found that there were a lot that were more than 3 METs. In other words, Wii Fit can really play a positive role as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Yes it can. When I found out that even on Wii Fit and Wii Sports, there were a lot that were 3 METs or over, it seems that this made a significant impression on people in Europe and America. That's why in the American guidelines, I believe that in future it will state that just by using Wii Fit and Wii Sports, it is perfectly possible to do the recommended amount of exercise.

I’ve heard that you’ve recently written a paper on the subject of Wii Fit.

That’s right. It should end up being published in an academic journal. It is still only a matter of months since I began my research, but I honestly didn't expect it to get the kind of response it’s had. I can’t talk in detail about it yet, but I’m hoping to be able to make the results of my research known worldwide.

Is that so?

I really didn’t think that I would end up attracting so much attention from around the world. It’s really all come as a complete surprise.

Well, there are more people in America and Europe who use Wii Fit than there are in Japan. So on the global level, there have been a huge number of weighing scales and exercise support software that have spread to homes around the world. So when an expert like you uses some evidence to show that doing this exercise can have real benefits, his research will be highly acclaimed worldwide.

Yes, I think that’s the case. Naturally, the fact that there is such a large number of users is one of the reasons for the scale of the impact and when this is combined with real, solid evidence, as a side effect, I believe that this has had an influence on the academic world of researchers.

At Nintendo, we came up with the concept for Wii Fit as non-experts, without any knowledge of the world of sports science. So now for elements of the software to be commended by specialists in the field, and to even be given advice by them on how to increase the value of the exercise programme, makes me feel that this thing which we got started has been taken to the next level.

I have actually learned a great deal from Wii Fit, in all kinds of ways. I have been surprised to learn that there were these methods of getting people to do activities and also that Wii Fit was able to do things that we were unable to do.

Could you give us some examples of this?

I spoke a little about it earlier, but Wii Fit really lowered the barriers people have when it comes to exercise. When we speak to people in order to encourage them to exercise, a barrier always appears. But with this software, that barrier gets dramatically lowered. This shows that it's not always the case that people want to be taught what to do by other people.

When people are dealing with another person, the less confidence they have, the more they are going to worry about what the other person thinks of them…

People really don’t like to be judged by others.

And because they don’t like to be judged, they will often try to avoid things, even if they know that it’s something important.

Exactly. Among people in my line of work, and not forgetting fitness instructors, our way of giving people guidance about physical exercise has often been to constantly stand beside them saying: “Do this! Do that! It’s better if you do it like this!” Many people believe this to be a good method of instruction, and there are many who think that by getting people to come to gyms as often as possible, they'll be able to instruct them better.

There may be a kind of unquestioned assumption on the part of the instructors that the more concentrated and focussed the instruction, the better quality it is.

I think there is exactly that kind of assumption. But it's not actually the case. Even if you only meet with someone once every three months or so, if you manage to come up with a programme where the person doing the training actually becomes aware themselves of the value of exercising, this is often the most beneficial way for that person and is actually easier for them to stick to. With busy people in particular, such as a middle-aged father, they tend to have a good knowledge of themselves and their lifestyles. With people like that, rather than have instructors standing beside them constantly…

It’s better to avoid interfering and let them do things in their own way as much as possible.

That’s why I realised that we have to change the way we think about our guidance. I have always had a tendency to talk a lot and to push people to do things...

(laughs)

To someone like myself who is basically the very model of a pushy gym instructor, I’ve really been able to gain a lot from working with Wii Fit.

So you realised that there are alternative ways of going about things.

It has been a genuinely educational experience for me and I realised that I need to reassess many things. These are the things that I have been taught by Wiibo.

(laughs)

There was also one other thing that surprised me.

What was that?

When I first heard that it would cost 2000 yen, I thought that I had misheard. (laughs) My wife was also taken back, saying: “Is it really 2000 yen?"

The reason why I decided on that price for the Japanese version of the game was because I wanted all those customers who owned Wii Fit to stay on board with us on this one.

I see.

If we had set the same trade price as we would for a normal piece of software, I think that at best we would have had perhaps only half of those owners buying it. That’s why we decided that we wanted as far as possible to get everyone on board with this one.*

*The final retail prices in Europe are determined by the retailers.

Right. Even if people had put away the Wii Balance Board, with this they will come back to it and be encouraged to continue using it.

Our recurring theme this time has really been "continuation".

It has, hasn’t it?

We spoke earlier about how to remove barriers, but actually what we do is identical. Video games should ultimately be enjoyable, but there are times when people play continuously, and there are times when they take a break.

Right.

There are those happy times when you just want to keep playing to find out what happens next, but it isn’t always like this and there are times when once you take a break, you don’t touch the game.

Right, you don’t touch it.

For that reason, I think putting games together in a way that makes people want to continue playing them is extremely important.

I see. That really is just the same as with exercise.

Yes it is. Thank you very much for speaking with me today.

Well, I fear I had rather a lot to say! (laughs) But it was my pleasure. Thank you very much!