{"id":3095,"date":"2010-01-05T06:44:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T04:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=3095"},"modified":"2015-02-23T17:06:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T22:06:00","slug":"i-have-a-hard-time-believing-microsoft-hates-fat-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/i-have-a-hard-time-believing-microsoft-hates-fat-people\/","title":{"rendered":"I Have a Hard Time Believing Microsoft Hates Fat People"},"content":{"rendered":"

I glanced at this blog post on Shakesville<\/a> today about the XBox 360, and then did a double take…\u00a0 Apparently Microsoft recently filed for a patent app,\u00a0“…to introduce a heightened degree of reality into the appearance of gamers\u2019 avatars by utilizing a third-party health-care data repository… or a Wii Vitality Sensor-like device.”<\/p>\n

In other words,\u00a0Microsoft wants to create gamers’ avatars capable of collecting\/storing user health info.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n

Evidently this is (partly)\u00a0why<\/a>:<\/p>\n

To incentivize people to improve their physical well-being, Microsoft\u2019s filing notes that gamers will be locked out of certain components of a game or a chat room until the proper health parameters are met.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhysical data that reflects a degree of health of the real person can be linked to rewards of capabilities of a gaming avatar, an amount of time budgeted to play, or a visible indication,\u201d the filing reads. \u201cThereby, people are encouraged to exercise.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To the Shakesville blogger and commenter, this is\u00a0yet another\u00a0example of “fat hatred.”<\/p>\n

But is it really?\u00a0 Does Microsoft really intend to restrict gamers deemed unhealthy or overweight from playing XBox games?<\/p>\n

I checked out the original article on GameSpot<\/a>… there’s quite an uproar in the comments.\u00a0 But I have a sneaking suspicion that commenter “DitkaKenobi” is on to something:<\/p>\n

This is for a fitness game people. Obviously they are not going to lock you out of stuff on your Xbox 360 because you’re fat.<\/p>\n

“For example, a locally executed VIDEO GAME on a game console or other device capable of interactive play rewards players that have achieved a degree of health or athletic skill in real life, even if played in a solitary fashion. Alternatively or in addition, the degree of health can unlock additional playing time or can UNLOCK CERTAIN ASPECTS OF A GAME, such as additional levels.”<\/p>\n

Clearly, it’s going to be for a “Wii Fit” type of game that will most likely be used with Natal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obviously, I have no idea of what’s cookin’ over in Redmond.\u00a0 Hell, the technology described in the patent app<\/a>\u00a0may never even see the light of day.\u00a0 But I seriously doubt Microsoft would risk alienating a significant percentage of its customer base by “incentivizing” exercise across the board in XBox 360 games.\u00a0 If they plan to use this at all, it only makes sense within the context of weight loss\/fitness-oriented applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I glanced at this blog post on Shakesville today about the XBox 360, and then did a double take…\u00a0 Apparently Microsoft recently filed for a patent app,\u00a0“…to introduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,24,28,29],"tags":[610,641,1854,1111,1147,1236,1704,1867,1817],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8884,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3095\/revisions\/8884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}