The Official Nintendo Magazine commented on something interesting in their review of EA Sports Active. Despite being bundled with two peripherals to help you keep fit, an hours play burns only 180kcal. Or half a Mars Bar, if you prefer.
180kcal is around the same amount that playing any Wii game will burn off, and also less than going for walk, which takes 240kcal.
The magazine – which has an exclusive of Red Steel 2 this month – suggests that playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band would give you a better workout.
I find any of these stats for activities that burn xx calories very dubious.
I don’t burn that much just playing wii games where I barely move, definately not 240 per hour.
With ea sports active personal trainer you have to remember SOME of the exercises use your bodyweight like squats and resistance bands to BUILD muscle.
The more muscle you have the higher rate you burn calories.
Also the effect of cardio speeds up your metobolism for hours after too.
Anway I don’t believe that statement :-)
Oh you said review, what score did it get?
You burn about 100 calories per hour just sitting watching TV (actual figure depends on your muscle mass).
Where did they get their “average Wii game calorie burn” figure? Surely it depends entirely on the intensity?
Rob – It got 63%. They said the presentation is classy but it doesn’t really work.
Adam – They said that sitting down watching TV burns 70kcal. I Googled “Wii calorie burn”. Most of the results were around 180 mark. One guy played Wii Sports loads to loose weight, and I quote “Wii Boxing burned an impressive 125 calories/half hour followed by Tennis at 92 calories/half hour and Bowling at 77 calories/half hour”
Of course, some games will burn more calories than others. The point is this though: Wii Sports is free, EA Sports Active costs £40-odd.
Thanks Matt, damn I pre-ordered it for £25 :-(
I was trying to look for the review but it isn’t online on the site.
Don’t see how doing exercises with resistance band and your own body weight can’t help you in a healthy lifestyle though???
Suppose what you expect, you can’t build real muscle without heavy weights but for cardio can’t see why using a wii can’t help you ….
It probably does help you – you get a personal trainer who shouts encouragement and stuff, and like you said, all exercise is good exercise. Anything that gets you off the sofa has to be healthy, right?
The point that ONM were making, in my opinion, is that there are better and cheaper ways to loose weight and it isn’t quite what EA has promised.
I guess its a difficult product to score.
So they didn’t say it wasn’t well thought out, or full of flaws, too easy or just not fun?
Im just worried about my £25 ;-)
Hell I should just jog to the newsagent (some exercise) and read the mag!!
I don’t buy mag as everything is online these days .. erm apart from this review ;-)
Matt – I won’t argue too much with the calorie burn figures, but will re-add that it depends entirely on your mass, especially your muscle mass.
The greater your mass, the more calories you’ll burn, whilst muscle requires even more calories. So a tiny skinny guy sitting down for an hour might just burn 70 calories, but a muscular guy twice his size could burn 150 calories doing exactly the same thing.
Added to that it depends how intensively you play the game. I play Wii Sports Tennis in quite a laid back manner, “all with the wrist”, but my wife plays it as if she’s at Wimbledon, so presumably she gets more benefit from it as a physical exercise.
Either way, the Wii’s not really going to make a massive impact on anyone’s calorie count. Just jogging lightly on a treadmill for an hour does about 500-600 calories and football will burn off around 1,000 calories in the same time.