Gaming companies spark some healthy new ideas

Today saw 60 of Scotland’s key individuals in the Wellness & Health and gaming industries in Scotland meet at the Centre for Excellence in Computer Games Education at Abertay University in Dundee to debate how companies can develop apps, hardware and software to meet the needs of the worldwide health and wellness sector. With current trends predicting that by 2050, 60% of males and 50% of females in the UK will be obese, health and wellness is a key focus for many organisations across Scotland and gaming will form a key part in reversing that trend.

Mark Taylor (Senior Director, Developer and Platform Evangelism) from Microsoft gave an insight into ‘Kinect’ (formally known as Project Natal) which is an interactive exergaming experience designed to take the Nintendo Wii to the next stage! With no controllers and no fit board, the user can experience the full interactive games experience just using gestures.

Taylor went onto to explain how Kinect is not just about physical wellness, Microsoft are also looking to develop applications to assist with independent assisted living. The audience were introduced to Milo, a fully interactive computer generated person who is intelligent enough to learn about the person it interacts with and the user learns about Milo. Milo has emotions, gestures, conversation just like a normal human being, all generated through a small device that sits at the top of your TV. The more you interact with Milo, the more Milo interacts with you. Causing quite a stir in the audience, there were endless possibilities for the use of Milo, especially for housebound patients such as stroke victims, rehabilitation patients and disabled people.

Microsoft also made a call to gamers and developers who could potentially develop additional solutions and applications to sit alongside Kinect to get in touch!

Organised by Wellness and Health Innovation, the leading support service for small businesses in the wellness and health sector in Scotland, the event also showcased some of Scotland’s early stage wellness and health sports products including:

• Funky Moves - a company offering a novel approach to physical activity and sports by utilising technology in new ways, through interactive cones that play a sequence of different games
• The Fit Zone - a revolutionary new piece of sports equipment designed to help people of all ages engage in a fitness program and
• Motomedia – a simple and easy to use interactive activity games platform.

Rounding up the day, Dr Alasdair Thin from Heriot-Watt University launched a white paper on Sports Wellness and Exergaming which identified a number of new opportunities for companies in this new and evolving sector. View the whitepaper here.

It is ironic that computer games over the last few years have been one of the main drivers for people becoming obese, sitting on the sofa, eating fast food and failing to exercise, and now gaming companies have realised they can utilise their software to help people become more active and fight the obesity challenge. Scotland has some exciting new products in this area and we predict this is only the cusp of the wave.... 

Presentations from the event can be found here.