Browsing through Konami's most recent Financial Earnings Report PDF shows some interesting figures about their Health & Fitness division being their 2nd most profitable venture behind their Digital Entertainment products (and ahead of their Casino Gaming machines even!).

Apparently Konami owns 337 Fitness Clubs in Japan, where they have personal trainers and even sell their own Konami brand nutrition supplements!

After reading about how important their commitment to sports and fitness is to Konami, I'd expect them to be releasing a slew of training, exercise, and sports software programs to compete with (or compliment) Wii Sports and Wii Fit.

Konami's already got a branded "Targeting Waist Program" in their Sports Club, but where are the equivalent fitness programs for Digital Entertainment to utilize accessories like Nintendo's Balance Board or to hook up with their own USB based "e-walkeylife2"?

I'd certainly welcome the variety of some Konami software making use of my balance board, as I'm already tired of the Nintendo Trainers.

the "fit" is shorthand for "fits nicely under your tv stand after it gets boring"

Yes Konami is one of the major fitness center chains here in Japan but I wonder how much synergy there is between the two divisions.  I had to ask a couple people whether they were actually part of the same company (yes I know that's what Wikipedia is for) just because there's nothing from the marketing aside from the name to really indicate so.  A friend of mine who was a member didn't really notice anything to connect them to the game company, although some of their gym equipment is supposedly on the high end as far as electronically recording and tracking your progress and stuff like that.

Anyhoo although you would think "fitness gaming" will be one of the next big segments of the video game market it wouldn't surprise me to see EA or some other company beat Konami to the punch.

Yeah, it's like there's no synergy at all between the separate divisions, and that is what has always baffled me about many, many corporations.  It's like each subsidiary is run independently and there's never any collaboration at all, each doesn't touch what the others are doing.

Just look at the history time-line of Konami Sports & Life Co., Ltd., which has been merged or acquired around half a dozen times and been renamed just as often too, so it's no wonder they don't share much strategy with the Digital Entertainment part.

It's all about transferring assets and moving liabilities around with big corporations, not about making their divisions work together WITH each other by sharing goals or products or anything.   When the brand name is the only thing shared in common, at that point the link is already meaningless since there's no association anyways.

Hahah I swear I hadn't seen this before posting.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/13/ea-sp … wii-lease/

Isn't physical fitness supposed to be an on-going, regimented system of discipline to reach goals? This is what happens when you mesh fitness and gaming I guess. Ah well, you could've spend $90 on a gym membership and never end up going.

Of course, you do realize that you are talking about Konami, the company that couldn't be bothered to bring Guitar Freaks to America 10 years ago.  Imagine how different things would be in the industry if they had.

And now the irony comes full circle: Konami is partnering with Activision to release the Guitar Hero arcade game:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/11/gui … o-arc.html