Zumba Fitness dance exercise video game Hands-on [Video]

Ever since we first heard of systems like the Wii and the Xbox 360 Kinect, we though gosh, that'd be awesome to utilize for exercise games. Imagine that, this is exactly what happened. But here's the thing: development is slow if you compare the exercise game ecosystem with games of basically every other type. There's been some games for the Wii Balance Board, the Wii Fit has seen some action, but what about Xbox 360's Kinect? How about the PlayStation Move? Is it just that gamers simply do not want to use their gaming systems to do work? Zumba Fitness isn't the first game in history to make dancing and therefore exercise an enjoyable activity, but it's certainly the most interesting to your humble narrator's eyes in the past few weeks, that's for sure.

What Zumba Fitness does is take the Zumba program, an program in which dancers do similar moves repetitively in order to exercise effectively, and makes it into a simple game. What you do in the game is just that, shake your rump, and as it's available for Wii with Wii Balance Board, PlayStation 3 with PlayStation Move and Xbox 360 with Kinect, you can bet it's got more than a decent opportunity to get into your living room. We got to see this game in action this past week at Pepcom's 2011 Holiday Spectacular in NYC.

[vms 12632cdae5452d20e1af]

Have a look at this application via Lisa Roth of Majesco Entertainment showing it off, both in detail and in practice, in the video here in the post. This game contains more than 30 routines you can do right out of the box, each of them based on Zumba fitness as it exists in the non-game world. You can set your game up for 20, 30, or 60 minutes intervals or you can just go forever and ever. You can work with several instructors, one of them being the originator of Zumba Alberto "Beto" Perez.

This game is coming out on the Wii on November 8th, 2011 and will include at least one of the unique Wiimote belts you see in the video so that you wont have to strap the Wiimote to your hip with duc-tape. A rather simple, playful, totally realistically applicable concept turned into a real-life gaming experience for your health – and not the of the Steve Brule sort!

To see more hands-on videos with gadgets, games, and technology consumables galore, check out our [Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 portal] and taste the product rainbow!