Pedometers

Hey guys, here's another idea/doo-hicky that I was just thinking about. Awhile back there was this craze for interactive pedometers (Not at all related to Pedo-bear) for kids, from both the Pokemon and Digimon franchises. I think the first was Pokemon, I believe. It was called the Pokemon Pikachu, and basically what it was was basically a Pikachu pedometer. The users or players would clip it to their belt and go for a stroll. (From wiki) "A yellow unit resembling a Game Boy, it features a black and white LCD screen used to display animations of Pikachu's activities. The second release, Pokémon Pikachu 2 GS, was available in clear and silver casing with a color display featuring more animations.[1] Both of the Pokémon Pikachu incarnations differ slightly from more traditional portable virtual pets in that Pikachu does not need to be fed, watered, or cleaned up after. Instead, the Pokémon Pikachu unit can be strapped to a belt and used as a pedometer. With every step it counts, the Pokémon Pikachu credits its user with "watts," which are a sort of currency used to buy Pikachu presents. Twenty steps on the pedometer will reward the player with one watt. As the player grows closer to Pikachu, more activities become available. However, if neglected, Pikachu will become angry and eventually refuse to recognize the player."

This toy was even mentioned in the Guiness World Records as the most popular exercise toy at the time.

Following that was the 'Digivice', which is essentially the same thing; a pedometer featuring a digimon that you would take out for walks, thus improving it's affection to the user, and improving it's abilities and other things like that.

Finally, a more recent incarnation is the Pokewalker that comes with the new Pokemon SoulSilver and HeartGold games for the Nintendo DS. This enables players to transfer a single pokemon from their game into their pokewalker and take them out for walks, the longer the walk, the more EXP and 'Watts' the pokemon gains. Also included are several minigames like treasure hunting and finding and capturing pokemon (albeit with a very simple and basic interface.)

All these toys encourage the player to exercise. One thing that may be pointed out is that while the 'lazier' players may attempt to simply shake their devices to gain the same digital benefits, the new Pokewalker comes with a sort of feature that only starts clocking up points when a rhythm is achieved (obviously via simply walking, which doesn't shake the device as much as rapidly shaking it up and down with your hand.)