if anyone starts dancing on stage I'm done with this.

I didnt think it was possible, but this is so much worse then MS conference. Holy smokes.

Whoops. You're right. The 28th. Just a few days off from Sept.

done.

Wow, enough with the add ons.
It looks like a decent work out mat, but seriously this is what Miyamoto is announcing?

Who am I kidding. They will sell millions of these.

so finally i can ask the question... did anyone lose weight with the wii yet?

You would think at how prolific Myamoto is that he might have picked up English as a hobby over the past 20 years.

That dude looks like Chris Farley on that exercise talk show skit. Huge torso with toothpick legs.

So far it sounds like they're going along with my speculation that they'd try to balance the "Wii Sports Gamer" and the "Zelda Gamer."

10:05 a.m.: Miyamoto takes stage for proper Nintendo ownage. "THe one game that I wanted to introduce to you this year is Wii Fit. When we first were thinking up the console for Wii, this is what we thought. We thought that the Wii would be a device that could be placed in the living room, and as such it needed to be relevant for everybody in the household." Also says it needed to make videogames relevant to everybody in the home. Says in order to achieve these, they needed something based on health.

Three fitness trainers are on-screen. Sharon, left stage, does a one-legged stretch. "Your control is outstanding," the game says.

Center stage trainer, John, demos an aerobic exercise. On-screen icons show different feet positions and you have to step onto and off of the peripheral quickly to match them. Looks basic, but fun. A kind of stair-stepping game, without any great incline.

Far right, Josephine, demonstrates a sideways tiwst. Very oga-like. The game says, "First, twist horizontally." It measures your balance as you do ths.

Yep. certainly looks like it. And I think they'll be successful.

Yeah, Wii Fit is not going to appeal to most of us here, but it will probably be a big hit with the "Wii Sports Gamer" (as Pixy put it).

10:10 a.m.: There are more than 40 activities in the game. Big round of applause for the demo.

Wii Balance board... can a Tony Hawk game be far behind?

I'm amazed I can exercise at home without owning a Wii. How do I get by....

This is why the Wii is $250. By the time you buy all these peripherals, you are up to the cost of a 360.

Exactly. But what happened to Wii Orchestra? That was at the last E3. That fits the same market.

Now they're saying that the balance pad will also be usable with more traditional games for "full body control".

No doubt, but it looks like we might have to see the third party lineups for the rest of the show to get wind of new "core" games. I think the only new one they've announced here is Mario Kart (which I'm not really a fan of).

All of them thus far are pack-ins.

Still not very exciting but they've got some decent banter going.

Don't have a Wii, but I like the idea of all of these non-games.

10:11 a.m.: Wii balance board is the official name of the device. It can measure your weight. It also measures how your balance shifts as you stand on it. "We can also use this as a new interface for games." It's wireless and can be used anywhere in the room.

You can do "body checks" on people with the device. They stand on it. "Please hold still up there," the software says. Asks players to remove heavy clothing. Asks them to relax and release the tension in their shoulders.

Outcome for Reggie, who stood on the device. Center of gravity results. Reggie tends to favor his right foot, it looks like.

The body mass index shows your daily progres and your family's progress. The development team has been tracking their own data over time, and they have gotten into a contest to see who can be the fittest the fastest.

Measures BMI. That's pretty cool. I wonder how accurate.