While most of the exergaming attention has gone to the Nintendo Wii, arcades occasionally get the nod for promoting physical activity via gaming, as we read in this article on the Rocky Mount Telegram website. DDR gets most the attention in this article which is fine, but do remember that there are some other non-DDR alternatives to coin-op exergaming out there (see here and here for a little more on coin-op exergaming). One thing I just realized though is that these kind of articles never give much attention to games like air hockey either which can give you a small workout if you get into it.
I do think that if we saw more exergames in arcades it would be a good thing, if not just for the exercise it would be great to since we could expect these kind of games to include controls that are difficult to reproduce at home (or that provide more exercise than simply flicking your wrist). I have heard rumors since last year that some arcade developers were looking into the possiblities of exergaming in light of the Wii craze but we still haven’t heard anything about such projects yet but with AMOA next month and IAAPA in November maybe we will get a surprise.
nestlekwik
Heh. I did one of these articles years ago. Does anyone even remember Martial Beat?