yoga posts(Subscribe to this feed)

JoWooD announces Yoga Wii for Q2 2009

by Ross Miller { Jul 7th 2008 at 8:30PM }

Pictured: Wii Fit

JoWooD Productions has announced Yoga Wii (not to be confused with Wii Yoga), coming second quarter of 2009 for the Nintendo Wii. The game will support the Balance Board as, according to the press release, "it plays a central role for the exercising (gaming) experience." No other details or assets are currently available. We expect this to be the first of many no-brainer yoga titles coming to the Wii for the next decade or two.

[Via NWF]

JoWood preparing a Wii Yoga workout

by JC Fletcher { Jul 6th 2008 at 12:00PM }

European publisher JoWood has announced that, along with new development partner Tivola (publisher of the great-looking Music Monstars on the DS), they're creating a yoga game for the Wii. The name: Wii Yoga. There are no specific details about the game yet (except those evident from the title), but it is planned for a "second quarter 2009" release in Europe, and it uses the Balance Board.

No information has been released about a possible American release, but a Wii Yoga game was among the titles revealed in the massive Intellisponse leak a few weeks back, which suggests that Activision or Disney may be releasing the game. Or that another game called Wii Yoga is planned, which isn't that unlikely given the completely, plainly obvious nature of the title.

Wii Fit vs. Let's Yoga

by Alisha Karabinus { May 23rd 2008 at 11:45AM }

If you happen to also follow our shenanigans over at DS Fanboy, you might have noticed the yogathon we just wrapped up, courtesy of Let's Yoga, a DS yoga trainer. With the release of Wii Fit, we've now got a great opportunity to compare two entirely different games that include yoga lessons. Five years ago, did you think you'd see that on a gaming site? Viable exergaming options -- we never thought we'd see the day. But how do the two titles stack up to one another? Check out our handy comparison chart, available after the break.

Gallery: Wii Fit

Continued →

Let's Yoga: Let's market games!

by Alisha Karabinus { May 13th 2008 at 10:15AM }

In our final look at Konami's Let's Yoga, we thought we'd spend some time discussing training games like this in general, as well as their reception in the U.S. In many parts of the world, training games are big, but not so much in the U.S. beyond Brain Age and its sequel. If we had to guess, we would say that part of that is due to marketing.

Can you walk into your local Best Buy and pick up Let's Yoga? Can you order it from Amazon? Sure. But how many people know it exists ... and of those few, how many might actually buy a copy? Let's assume that most gamers don't have the benefit of the DS Fanboy yogathon to let them know that this training game (like another we checked out) may actually be worth their while. Without that knowledge, how many gamers might show any interest in such a title? Probably not very many, even among those actually fascinated by yoga.

Gallery: Let's Yoga

Continued →

Let's Yoga vs. Yoga DVD

by Alisha Karabinus { May 12th 2008 at 10:15AM }

Our yogathon is winding down, but there are a few important things yet to cover, such as ... can Let's Yoga compete with a yoga DVD? Exercise DVDs are a huge market -- could a game possibly one-up that industry? We went through a step-by-step comparison of the features of Konami's trainer and a beginner yoga DVD available at a big box retailer.

Yoga for Beginners with Patricia Walden comes with a thick booklet detailing all the included poses, as well as guidelines for creating your own workout. In order to use the DVD with them, you'll have to do a lot of fast-forwarding and rewinding; for all intents and purposes, the DVD only includes one lesson. You've already seen what Let's Yoga can do, if you've been following our yogathon, but we've got a chart comparing some of the features of the two after the break.

Gallery: Let's Yoga

Continued →

Let's Yoga: Tackling Krishna

by Alisha Karabinus { May 9th 2008 at 12:00PM }

The relative ease of the Naga class in Let's Yoga was apparently a cruel joke meant to make yoga seem easy. After three lessons in the next step, the Krishna class, it is clear that yoga is not easy, not at all. The Master's Lesson quickly moved from "This isn't so bad!" to "OMG whaaaat?" in the space of a few sessions. Ever looked at yoga poses and thought some looked hard? You were right.

But after completing over half of the Krishna class, it got a little easier, and I'm willing to concede that maybe the exercises weren't quite as face-rockingly hard as they seemed at first. They were, however, a huge leap forward from the Naga class.

Gallery: Let's Yoga

Continued →

Let's Yoga: DIY workouts

by Alisha Karabinus { May 8th 2008 at 12:00PM }

Four days in and the first course is complete! The Naga class in Let's Yoga wrapped up with a simple review of the poses learned throughout, so instead of focusing on that, today we'll be exploring the extras available in Konami's training title. There are loads of options available beyond the basic lessons, including the ability to design your own workout.

After a look ahead at the beginning of the Krishna class, I must say that playing with the options looks a lot easier than what's in store, lesson-wise ... there are rough times in my future.

Gallery: Let's Yoga

Continued →

Let's Yoga: Mat recommended

by Alisha Karabinus { May 6th 2008 at 11:15AM }

My second day with Let's Yoga taught me two things:

forget what the game says! Sure, maybe you don't need any sort of a mat, but it really does make things easier, because carpet is rough (suddenly glad I don't have hardwood), and
definitely remember the breathing, because it helps tremendously

Overall, day two with the DS yoga trainer was a resounding success. There are still certain poses with which I have some trouble (but hey, it's only day two), but I can already see definite progress, and that's exciting. But let's start with the basics. Lesson two of the Naga class began with an explanation of just what yoga is, and it's useful knowledge that I'll pass on here.

According to Let's Yoga, the term "yoga" itself basically means "to bind." This doens't mean it's binding you up; instead, it's about melding -- or binding, if you will -- the mind and body into one strong unit. The poses are known as Asanas, or "positions of the body." I'll typically refer to them here by their English names, because they're easier to remember and also easier to spell. There is one exception, however, though I'll get to that later.

Gallery: Let's Yoga

Continued →

Let's Yoga: We did!

by Alisha Karabinus { May 5th 2008 at 11:15AM }

I've always wanted to try yoga. I've bought mats and cubes and even a DVD, and once I went so far as to sign up for a class I never attended. There's just never been time, and these days, I have even fewer moments to spare for something that seemed so esoteric. However, when Konami first announced their yoga trainer for the DS, I got excited. Maybe this time I would be able to put some effort into it; after all, DS training is fun and mostly effective, right?

Then I had a baby, and everything changed. I despaired at ever having time to do anything again. Between juggling work and the tiny boy, as well as other hobbies and family obligations (and, hey, gaming), finding ten minutes a day to sleep is a challenge, much less ten minutes to focus on any sort of workout. But with the long-overdue release of Let's Yoga in the U.S., I was determined to try.

Gallery: Let's Yoga

Continued →

Promotional Consideration: DS Style, the Freshmaker

by Eric Caoili { Apr 27th 2008 at 3:00PM }

Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.

Square Enix has rolled out no less than seven commercials for its DS Style line of "non-games," one for each of the series' seven casual software titles. They're low-budget productions shot with simple scripts, spartan sets, and a single actress in most of the scenes.

Bring your trivial dilemmas past the post break, where we've posted a medley of the 15-second spots past the post break, as well as early 90s commercials for the minty product referenced in this installment's title.

Continued →

Friday Video: Stretch it out

by Alisha Karabinus { Feb 1st 2008 at 7:00PM }

We thought this nice, relaxing yoga video (which showcases Let's Yoga) might be a great way to start off the weekend. After all, it's been a long week. You're probably tired, and maybe a little stressed. Perhaps you're planning to go out this weekend. Maybe there will be some drama, or drinking, or hey, both. Maybe you'll play games until your arm or back cramps (damn you, Metroid Prime Hunters!). Maybe you just need a break. But we have to warn you: if you do any of the moves in this video without buying Let's Yoga, you are officially a yoga pirate.

Konami's yoga trainer released last fall in Europe, and 1UP blogger onela has a great writeup here (and is the source of the video as well).

Let's Speculation

by JC Fletcher { Jan 29th 2008 at 11:15AM }

Frequent new game release news source and occasional rental service Gamefly has come through again, hinting strongly at a probable U.S. release for two previously unannounced games: Let's Yoga and Let's Pilates. We're not terribly surprised to see this news: Let's Yoga (called Doko Demo Yoga in Japan) was released in Europe in November, and Ubisoft has announced their own competing yoga game, Quick Yoga Training.

Gamefly currently says that both games will release on May 1st, just in time to provide DS owners with an outlet for Wii Fit-related fitness enthusiasm. We're interested in seeing how American gamers (or non-gamers) respond to the widening genre of training games.

Read - Let's Pilates
Read - Let's Yoga

Wii Fit's yoga demonstrated by comfy person

by JC Fletcher { Dec 20th 2007 at 4:00PM }

WiiFolder's Josh Thomas is back again, playing Wii Fit on camera so we can all see what we're missing. And no, he still hasn't bothered to change out of his pajamas. Blogging in jammies is fairly standard procedure, but we think that, as a rule, videoblogging requires pants.

It could just be that Josh required comfy, roomy pajama pants for optimal Wii Fit stretching, we guess. It could also be that we've spent too much time talking about this dude's britches and we should start talking about Wii Fit now. Basically, in Wii Fit's yoga program, you're required to hold one of 15 poses to a pretty severe degree of precision (indicated by a dot inside a circle) for 30 seconds. It looks really damn hard. We anticipate busting our faces on the Balance Board within hours. Or getting an awesome workout.

[Via GoNintendo]

Ubisoft quickly preparing yoga training

by JC Fletcher { Dec 16th 2007 at 12:00PM }

In Japan, Square Enix and Konami are battling (serenely) for domination of the DS yoga training game market. Konami has released their Doko Demo Yoga as Let's Yoga. But in the U.S., it's anybody's game. Literally -- any yoga game that comes out will be the best yoga game available. Ubisoft likes those odds.

A listing has appeared on GameStop.com for a game from Ubisoft called Quick Yoga Training, to be released on March 28th. They had better be quick about their yoga training if they want to make sure to beat Konami, who (we assume) will release Let's Yoga over here ... at some point. As for us, we don't care who we get our yoga training from, as long as it allows us to stretch our limbs several times their normal size, breathe fire, and teleport.

[Via Siliconera]

The yoga-game arms race heats up

by JC Fletcher { Oct 4th 2007 at 6:50PM }

As part of the second series of DS Style cards, Square Enix released a yoga trainer called DS de Hajimeru: Tipness no Yoga (Begin with the DS: Tipness's Yoga) in collaboration with Tipness, a fitness club chain. Naturally, it looks a lot like Konami's Let's Yoga, but it would pretty much have to. We think we prefer Square's aesthetic, which uses some cut-paper-style mascots and full-motion video yoga demonstrations.

And we say that without being invited to the yoga class Square Enix held in Shibuya for the press. We look forward to seeing how the Great Yoga Game Wars of '07 play out.