"When we make some new announcement and if there is no positive initial reaction from the market, I try to think of it as a good sign because that can be interpreted as people reacting to something groundbreaking."

And let me tell you, the Virtual Boy was absolutely groundbreaking. I'm sure the Vitality Sensor will be at least that excellent. [Nintendo Dpad via Go Nintendo]

Nintendo's North American President Reggie Fils-Aime explained that the Vitality Sensor is just the latest in a chain of products that are first misunderstood and ridiculed, gaining acceptance after having a chance to prove themselves, like the DS, or the Wii, or the Balance Board. Pretty much everything, actually:

[We] probably had a very similar conversation when we first showed the Nintendo DS: how is it going to work, why a touch screen, voice activation—I don't get it. We probably had a similar conversation about the Wii Remote: how is this going to work, how is it going to work with the games that I want to play—I don't get it. Now I'm hearing something similar for the Wii Vitality Sensor. And all I can tell you is, with the game developers that we have, we will bring forth an experience that you will say, "Wow, I get it."

There were surely plenty of folks who ridiculed the DS and Wiimote concepts, but they were shouted down by the rational majority who could easily see how a touchscreen handheld or a console motion controller could be awesome.

And besides, most interested people do have specific ideas in mind for the Vitality Sensor, which is precisely why they're not excited. It's not the nobody "gets" the product; it's that gamers are lamenting the Wii's accelerating change from a fun console to some kind of distinctly un-fun health device.

Of course Nintendo could blow us all away with some new kind of clever biometric game integration, akin to their previous attempt at a heartrate sensor (except hopefully better), but if they want us to expect—and get excited about—anything beyond Wii Fit II, we're going to need a little more information—games, clues, or frankly, anything at all. [Fast Company via TechRadar]

The accessory, which was sold in Japan for like, two months, differed from Nintendo's E3 anti-coup, the Vitality Sensor, only in that it clipped to your ear rather than your finger. We still don't really know how Nintendo and its developers plan to use the Vitality Sensor, but the Bio Sensor could be instructive here:

In this particular title, you could have the game of Tetris either speed up or slow down as your heart rate increased. The former game mode would allow you to relax when things got too tense, and the latter would force you to control your reactions if you didn't want the game to get uncontrollably difficult.

As a sarcastic, 1998 version of me might've said: Oh, sweet.

Personally, I like the Wii-as-an-ICU thesis a little more. [Gamelife via Kotaku]

Nintendo:
• Nintendo E3 Keynote
• Wii Vitality Sensors Turns Wii into Definitive Nursing Home Console
•Nintendo Wii MotionPlus Hands On: One Year, Three Games Later
• Why the Original Wiimote Didn't Have MotionPlus
• Nintendo: We Could Be Stuck With the Wii for 8 More Years
• Power Up Charging Stand Recharges the Wii Punch-Out Board
• Mad Catz Wiimote Feels Like the Real Thing for $10 Less
• Nyko Zoom Case: 'Cause You Don't Care If Your DSi Is Actually Portable
• Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata Says He Wouldn't Use a Mac or iPhone if Apple Was a Competitor
• Old Feuds Reunite Between Nintendo and Sega
• The Difference Between Sony and Nintendo at E3
•5 Things That Should've Been at E3 But Weren't

Microsoft:
• Microsoft E3 Keynote
• Testing Project Natal: We Touched the Intangible
• Xbox 360 Project Natal Full Body Motion Control One Ups the Wii
• Project Natal Won E3, and Maybe the Motion Control Wars
•Microsoft: Project Natal Is "The Endgame"
• Project Natal on Video
• Download Xbox Live Full Retail Games on Demand
• Microsoft Says Xbox 360 Is "Less Than Halfway Done
• Where Is Xbox Live Anywhere?
• Facebook and Twitter on Xbox 360
• Netflix Lets You Add to Queue, Zune Video Marketplace Gets 1080p Instant Streaming
• Xbox Live Spillover: New Avatars, Where's Hulu and Why I Hope You Have Fast Internet
• Halo 3 ODST Collector's Edition Controller Won't Fit in Convenant Hands
• The Xbox Needs Apps
• 5 Things That Should've Been at E3 But Weren't

Sony:
• Sony's E3 Keynote
• PS3 Motion Controller May Be the Best Game Motion Capture Yet
• Hands On: Is The PSP Go! Too Small?
• Sony to Offer New Digital Copies Of Your Old UMD Games
• Everything You Need to Know About the PSP Go!
• Sony: Dual Shock Still Defacto, Motion Control Secondary
• Sony PlayStation Motion Controller Video: How It Works
• The Difference Between Sony and Nintendo at E3
• 5 Things That Should've Been at E3 But Weren't

Aaaand that's it. Hope you liked our coverage of E3 as much as we liked covering it!

What are they going to do with this thing? Probably tie it to Wii Fit and some other games that would monitor your heart rate to make things more difficult. Who knows. Who cares. I think this time this is going too far, and I don't care this makes the console even more popular among different demographics. Maybe I'm too thick today after being bored to dead by that press conference—and I'm the biggest Nintendo whore in the planet.

Do you have any extra ideas?

To start, here's one suggested by a friend on Twitter: Nintendo Wii, the Nursing Home Console™.