They should try going to the arcades since that seems to be where the competition is. Seriously, my eyes can't keep up with how fast they step on a 3x3 dance floor.
New DDR game aimed at fighting obesity
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Konami teams with UnitedHealthcare for DDR Classroom Edition that allows teachers to track students' health progress.
Konami and UnitedHealthcare today announced a joint initiative aimed at reducing childhood obesity through a new version of DanceDanceRevolution called the Classroom Edition.
The game and its associated hardware was developed by Performance Designed Products and allows up to 48 students to simultaneously participate in a dance session by using mat controllers. These mats are outfitted with a "smart card reader" that tracks an individual student's progress.
Teachers will receive information about students' health including number of steps taken during a particular song, body mass index, and caloric burn rate. A song list for the DDR Classroom Edition was not announced, and a Konami representative was not immediately available to comment.
DDR Classroom Edition has been launched in three schools already, including those in Longwood, Florida; Gainesville, Georgia; and Fresno, Texas. The game will also be folded into the "Activate for Kids" school wellness program, which is run by UnitedHealthcare and the United Health Foundation throughout Florida, Georgia, and Texas.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
49 comments
A good friend of mine has StepMania and he played that to get in better shape. He would always top of the exercise with the Rock Lee theme that was adapted for the game. That song burned over 9000 calories in one play through.
And all this because no one wants to help people in general be more responsible for their own lives and health? Appreciate the gesture, but you're not helping those that aren't helping themselves...
Seems GameSpot may have missed the Exergaming revolution in the Digital Out-of-Home entertainment (DOE) sector. The Pump it Up franchise has been in the fitness scene for the last few years - release by Positive Gaming as iDANCE this has 32 connected platforms! And Konami have been working in this sector for some time.
Take a deep breath. Maybe a glass of water. Read the title again. Now try to accept that this is real.
Why isn't this DDR game aimed at fighting the enemies of Eastern Germany? Oh right, it's that other DDR.
Edit: Oh la la, we finally have an edit function. God dammit, it's about time!
As a kid, I played a lot DDR Mario Mix, I didn't like much DDR games, but I don't know what happened with this one, I played it every single day in hard mode over a month.
I remember I weighted about 165 pounds, after a month, I weighted about 142 pounds, that was insane!
It's a fun way to lose weight.
Too bad It was borrowed :(
1 Like This will likely promote social anxiety and peer pressure due to being unable to perform better than the other kid who is more popular than you. This in turn will generate social stress that then will lead to school shootings.
The logic all adds up.
@Falru or! or... this will unite kids in song and dance... either way bullying will happen with this game or not, so that's really a whole different matter... at least the way I see it, I remember my middle school had a PS2 and a DDR game and then just a few of my friends and I would play it every chance we got, any teasing would be from people who think the game was dumb :P but idgaf
2 Like @acealexander702 @Mrod1212 I would rather run a mile on a track than play DDR any day.
@WhiteStormy @acealexander702 @Mrod1212 You would listen to music though right ??? In your mind you would be going up, up, down, down, chop, kick etc... Sorry I had to :P
What a horrible idea!!!! Just what we need, some gadget to showcase overweight students to the rest of the kids. I wonder what Konami can create to stem the depression and shame this is going to generate.
I don't believe that video games cause children to be more violent, but I certainly can see some kid coming back to shoot up his classmates over this.
4 Like @stziggy being a fatass kid is not ok. anything that gives them more of a reason not to is fine by me
@justinka777 @stziggy great way to put it... I agree, if there's teasing involved this also helps flesh out that problem and hopefully the school would take the time to deal with it
5 Like fatties should learn about nutrition and the keto diet instead of sinking money into some stupid scam weight-loss game.
Oh, whatever. If that's how they want to spend their gym class let them. We live in a country where our poorest families, literally the people with the fewest resources, also have the highest incident of obesity. When simple and free solutions are sitting right outside the window and you decide to spend 10,000 dollars on a complicated one there's just no hope of change.
What? This game isn't new at all. I remember reading about it years ago, and there's a video of it on Youtube dated Feb 27th, 2012! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbTuDWqAIPM
1 Like All the exercise in the world won't do any good if parents keep stuffing their children full of fast food, processed food, and high fructose corn syrup.
ROFL - MAT controllers? I'm sure playing on basic is gonna burn a lot more calories, right? Give it to the kids on Extreme and they'll fail every single song.
2 Like Um, no, sorry, no. It's not the school's responsibility to get kids in shape. That's the parents job. Stop trying to get government institutions to parent children. It's a terrible idea.
1 Like @CyhortI82 That's just it... the parents aren't doing their jobs. Do you really think the government should just sit back and do absolutely nothing about the obesity epidemic? No matter how bad you think the government is with this type of thing, doing nothing would be worse.
@CyhortI82 I'll say I think it SHOULDN'T be the government's job, but leaving it to the parents has failed miserably in the US in particular and the one being hurt most is the child.
Hmmm... The benefits of this will be completely negated by mom and dad's McDonalds surprise. Want to fight obesity? Educate the parents, no more soda, no more high fructose corn syrup, etc. I'm glad to see some initiative by a game developer, but bring the parents into the situation to help the kids even more... I'm betting some parent will pull their kid from this because there is "nothing wrong with the way the kid is" That said, I'm off to go do a Les Mills Combat workout...
As well as being a gaming culture icon, DDR is the most simplest rhythm game available despite having Kinect games like Dance Central and Wii Fit for the Wii. No 'tuning this' or 'play in well lit areas' to get it to work. Everyone should be still playing it.
1 Like Waste of cash imo, what happened to sports and PE ?...if the kids fat then its their choice, they can do something about it or let it be, not the teachers problem
@Paul2004 You can't blame the kids for being fat. It's the parents responsibility to make sure their kid is healthy.
@Paul2004 Not everyone is interested in sports. It's certainly a cheap way to go but so is yoga. Honestly if they want to be cool and hip and in tune with kids, this really isn't a bad way to go.
1 Like DDR was mainly how I lost all my weight. Used to weigh 190, but with DDR and finally doing my workouts, im down to a nice 135. Active player since 2002
1 Like So now PE involves children dancing, and giving teachers the child's BMI and the like? O.o
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