"EA Sports Active" May Be a Mother's Day Gift That Keeps on Giving

Generally speaking it is fairly bad form to give an exercise oriented gift to a woman, even in a case like with your Mom where your relationship probably won't be hurt by a misunderstanding of the intent of the gift. But if there's a Mom on your list who you've been trying to introduce to gaming and who doesn't mind, or even better, likes breaking a sweat, then EA Sports Active may be a good option.

First off, the main caveat and possibly a deal breaker with regards to Mother's Day and Sports Active is that the title doesn't actually release until May 19th, meaning that it misses the Mother's Day buying rush. I've no idea what Electronic Arts (EA) was thinking on this, since Sports Active is a prime gift option for active mothers who own or have access to a Wii. But if you can hold off on the gifting for a week or so, it might be worth it. You might ask, why hold off? There are other exercise/fitness titles available for the Wii, for example Wii Fit, Gold's Gym Cardio Workout, Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009 and a few others. This is very true, but reports today of comments by Peter Moore in which he was intent on making it known that EA, the publishers of the exercise title, consider Sports Active a "platform" would indicate that Sports Active might include additional future downloadable content, in addition to a heart rate and other biometric data. The 800-lb gorilla of the fitness/exercise genre, Wii Fit, includes some light biometrics, but not a heart rate meter. Also Wii Fit is not really an exercise title, where as Sports Active aims a little more towards this; not totally, but definitely more so.

The main point take away from this "platform" comment is that if there is additional content this means that the life of Sports Active would certainly be extended, which tends to keep users engaged longer. Add to this the fact that novice users, i.e. your Mom, would be getting exposure to more advanced uses of the Wii by updating their software via downloads, and you have both a health building and gamer building endeavor. This sounds like both a good move for EA and your Mom, if she is so inclined. Make it so EA and they will come.

To learn more about EA Sports Active, click here.

–Hobson's Choice