Play a Mario video game for the first time and maybe your first Mario dies by running into an easy enemy such as a mushroom-like Goomba. It's annoying, but your self-esteem is intact.

Not so with Nintendo's new sensation, Wii Fit. If you mess up, the game is likely to put you down. And when it evaluates your weight, height, and age, you might just end up being called an overweight 44-year-old couch potato, as I was.

Awesome! My electronic exercise trainer is telling me that I'm over the hill already? That's some motivation!

Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, says "it's not intentionally being harsh" and customers shouldn't take it personally.

"What you find is that you start setting goals, you come back and do the same exercise and you get better and better at it and you really improve your Wii Fit age overtime," Dunaway says. "So it has the quality of a video game, it just keeps you coming back, wanting to play, wanting to do better."

But according to an article on vnunet.com, an 11-year-old girl and her family complained to Nintendo that the game called the child overweight, one of four body-mass index categories (the other three being underweight, normal, and obese). Nintendo reportedly responded with this statement:

"Nintendo would like to apologize to any customers offended by the in-game terminology used to classify a player's current body mass index status. The resulting figures may not be entirely accurate for younger age groups due to varying levels of development."

Nintendo of America added:

"Parents who are concerned that their children would react negatively to one of the four [body-mass index] categories should use Wii Fit in such a way that the BMI tracker does not appear on the screen."

Consumer grumbling could be bad news for Nintendo, which has outmaneuvered rival game-console makers Sony and Microsoft by enticing people young and old to play its Wii games.

"Nintendo has been able to effectively deliver the message that gaming can be fun for everyone, not just the core gaming demographic," says David Riley, director of corporate marketing for The NPD Group, a leading market research firm for the video game industry.

That has translated into eye-popping revenue and profit growth. Net sales rose 73 percent, to approximately $16 billion, last year, while net income grew 48 percent to about $2.5 billion.

Nintendo also says the game benefits busy moms. Dunaway says, "Sometimes it's hard to make trade-offs between time spent working out and time spent with family." With Wii Fit she can workout with her 9-year-old son.

No need to limit the benefits to home, however. Portfolio.com has come up with a few ways Wii Fit could improve your life at work, too. Watch the video:

by Willow Duttge

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