Wii health research found to be Nintendo-funded

The Wii has been getting all sorts of accolades for promoting better health among the usually sedentary gamer herd. Just recently, we posted about a study conducted by the Liverpool John Moores University that showed 12 hours of Wii gaming a week could result in burning up to 1,813 calories.

Good news and all, but SPOnG decided to dig a bit deeper in order to get more in-depth information on how the study came into being. They contacted Professor Tim Cable, the guy who supervised the study, and asked him how the whole thing came about. His straightforward answer? “Nintendo commissioned it.”

While corporations sponsoring research isn’t anything new, SPOnG also had some questions regarding the study’s sampling size. A senior staff member at the University of Leeds, when informed of the pertinent sampling numbers used in the research, said, “That sounds very small to me – 45 minutes and 12 people are not statistically relevant.”

So, does all of this invalidate the Nintendo-funded research? Not exactly. Here’s SPOnG’s take on it, including a quote from the University of Leeds senior staff member:

“What you’ve got here is an indication or a feasibility (study), this is to show that a full research trial could work, how it would produce results.” In short, what a researcher would do would be to take this study to the funding body in order to get a further sum of money to carry out the kind of in-depth work that Professor Cable is indicating would go up for peer review.

Still, SPOnG notes that the fact that “nowhere in the press release is it stated that the research is Nintendo-funded, nor that the study is preliminary is cause for concern.” We agree. The lack of information regarding what kind of “traditional consoles” or which games were used as comparatives also raises quite a few questions.

These little cloak-and-dagger issues really are a bit disappointing. The study is actually quite commendable, and if it becomes full-blown, it could lead to a renaissance in both exercise and innovation, not to mention improving the image of the videogame industry as a whole.

Via SPOnG

The Wii has been getting all sorts of accolades for promoting better health among the usually sedentary gamer herd. Just recently, we posted about a study conducted by the Liverpool John Moores University that showed 12 hours of Wii gaming a week could result in burning up to 1,813 calories.

Good news and all, but SPOnG decided to dig a bit deeper in order to get more in-depth information on how the study came into being. They contacted Professor Tim Cable, the guy who supervised the study, and asked him how the whole thing came about. His straightforward answer? “Nintendo commissioned it.”

While corporations sponsoring research isn’t anything new, SPOnG also had some questions regarding the study’s sampling size. A senior staff member at the University of Leeds, when informed of the pertinent sampling numbers used in the research, said, “That sounds very small to me – 45 minutes and 12 people are not statistically relevant.”

So, does all of this invalidate the Nintendo-funded research? Not exactly. Here’s SPOnG’s take on it, including a quote from the University of Leeds senior staff member:

“What you’ve got here is an indication or a feasibility (study), this is to show that a full research trial could work, how it would produce results.” In short, what a researcher would do would be to take this study to the funding body in order to get a further sum of money to carry out the kind of in-depth work that Professor Cable is indicating would go up for peer review.

Still, SPOnG notes that the fact that “nowhere in the press release is it stated that the research is Nintendo-funded, nor that the study is preliminary is cause for concern.” We agree. The lack of information regarding what kind of “traditional consoles” or which games were used as comparatives also raises quite a few questions.

These little cloak-and-dagger issues really are a bit disappointing. The study is actually quite commendable, and if it becomes full-blown, it could lead to a renaissance in both exercise and innovation, not to mention improving the image of the videogame industry as a whole.

Via SPOnG