Nintendo jumps from brain training to your actual physical fitness. What was named as the "Wii Health Pack" a while ago was released today in Japan as "Wii Fit", a selection of games and exercises that you could do by standing on a pressure sensitive "Wii Balance Board."

So what was the interest like? Well, Famitsu dropped by the usual Yodobashi Camera store in Shinjuku this morning to find out and there were only 10 people queuing at 7am. An hour later, this increased to 20 and then to 100 when the shop finally opened at 9:30am. Many who were there only found about Wii Fit because of all the promotional CMs that have been on TV and their children said they wanted to try it.

Not quite as eager a crowd as the Crisis Core and MHP2 ones then. And where are the ads outside the shop? They're all Final Fantasy posters! Well OK, there's a Basara 2 banner too.

I will probably buy this because I like the idea of how it uses games to encourage exercise and also tracks your progress for you. I hope it allows you to customise some of the exercises such as how many press-ups you can do.

The other main thing I'm concerned about is that the wireless board uses four AAs and that means rechargeable batteries might not work with it. My old digital camera uses four batteries too but doesn't work with rechargeables. It's mainly because of the big voltage difference when you need to use four or more AA batteries. This guide gives some good information about batteries.

I guess the balance board will be eating through a lot of alkaline batteries unless someone comes up with a proper rechargeable battery pack.