"Jack me in"
It definently looks like the exer-gaming scene is picking up a lot of steam and while so far these kinds of devices are being marketed towards gyms, I believe that arcades/FECs could easily capitalize on them as well -as long as they offer a coin box/card swipe sort of function to pay-per-play. So far all of the exer-games which use a fitness bike that we have seen involves a cycling game of some sort but now a company called Electronic Sports has developed a flight-sim/flight-combat title that incorporates the fitness bike into controlling the game. It certainly looks like fun – just the competitive nature of the game alone could draw in players that may not be so prone to sweat it out on an exercise bike and on top of that 
they already have an online system in place so you can compete with people from anywhere. The graphics in the game aren’t anything to get excited about (they look to be a bit dated although the draw distance is fine) but I think that people will be forgiving of that in the same way they are of the Wii due to it’s control scheme.
here’s a video of Dog Fight in action, filmed in complete “gym equipment infomercial” style, replete with people that over-act and special effects to show you what part of the body is getting a work out. It’s cheesy like you’d expect but it looks like the game delivers on what it promises.
As a final thought, I wonder if this is going to start influencing arcade makers to bring back the same concept to arcades. It had been done before with the likes of Namco’s Prop Cycle and it’s certainly become a more viable concept as exer-gaming is taking off in gyms so maybe it’s only a matter of time.
[Dog Fight @ Electronic Sports website] [Discuss on the forum]
